
ILSIEN 

NATHALIE 


















Book_. Gif "S 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 















\ 








LITTLE SEA-FOLK 








LITTLE SEA-FOLK AT HOME 










LITTLE SEA-FOLK 


BY 

ILSIEN NATHALIE GAYLORD 

U 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 

FLORENCE LILEY YOUNG 


NON-REFERT 
Q 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1923 













Copyright, 19SS, 

By Little, Brown, and Company. 
AU rights reserved 
Published September, 1923 


Printed in the United States of America 


SEP 12 '23 

©C1A752897 

'\\ t I 



To 

FRANCIS KINGSLEY BALL 

iNSPmiNa Critic 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Where the Little Sea-Folk Live . 1 

II. Who’s Who Among the Starfish. . 20 

III. The Sea Urchins’ Family Tree . . 30 

IV. The Crab Family.43 

V. Lobster Folk and Their Relations 72 

VI. Little Shell Folk.93 

VII. More Little Shell Folk . . . . 114 

VIII. Sponges, Jellyfishes, and Hydroids 135 
IX. Sea Anemones and Corals . . . . 151 

X. Sea Worms and Other Folks . . . 170 
XI. Curious Fishes. 190 


•• 

vu 







ILLUSTRATIONS 

Little Sea-Folks at Home. Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Where the Little Sea-Folk Live. 1 

Brittle Starfish; Plumose Anemone; Sea Urchin ... 3 

Barnacles; Ghost Crab . 7 

Sand Dollar; Sea Worm.11 

Basket Starfish.21 

Daisy Starfish; Common Starfish (top and bottom); Sun 

Starfish; Cushion Starfish.24 

Starfish Opening Oyster; Rosy Feather; Sea Lily ... 27 

Sea Urchin; Test of Sea Urchin; Heart Urchin .... 33 

Sand Dollar; Split Sand Dollar; Sea Cucumber ... 37 

Hermit Crab; Masked Crab; Coral Crab.44 

Spider Crab; Cow Boy Crab.55 

Lady Crab; Fiddler Crab.61 

Giant Crab and Little Broad Claws.65 

Horseshoe Crab.67 

Baby Crabs.69 

Common Lobster; Spiny Lobster; Deep Sea Lobster . . 73 

Big Claw Shrimp; Common Shrimp; Skeleton Shrimp; 

Spiny Shrimp.81 

Amphipod; Copepods.89 

Rose Murex Shell; Root Murex Shell; Fulgar Shell; Venus* 

Comb Shell.95 

Thorny Oyster; Pearl Oyster; Common Oyster Shell . . 101 

ix 

















X 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Giant Clam Shell; Sun Ray Shell.105 

Scallop; Valentine Heart; Angel Wings.110 

Abalone Shell; Slipper Shell.Ill 

Tiger Cowrie Shell; Mitre Shell; Marbled Cone Shell; 

Music Volute Shell; Distaff Shell.117 


Tangled Worm Shells; Elephant’s Tooth Shell; Worm 


SheU.,.121 

Violet Snail and Bubble Raft.123 

Bleeding Tooth Shell; Purpura Shell; Periwinkle; Carrier- 

of-Strangers.127 

Paper Nautilus.132 

Sponge Spicules.137 

Venus’ Basket Sponge; Umbrella Jellyfish; Portuguese 

Man-of-War.141 

Ribbon Jellyfish; Gooseberry Fish; Baby Jellyfish . . 145 

Orange Hydroid; Ostrich Plume; Egg-Cups . .149 

Crimson Dahlia Anemone; Thimble Anemone; Star Anem¬ 
one; Plumose Anemone; Beadlet Anemone. . . . 153 

Trumpet and Globehorn Anemones; Anemone on Hermit 


Crab.. 160 

White Coral; Star Coral; Mushroom Coral; Brain Coral; 

Lettuce Coral.165 

Organ-pipe Coral; Red Coral; Sea Fan; Sea Pen . . . 167 

Spirorbis.171 

Serpula on Shell; Potter Tube Worm; Paddle Worm . . 175 

Bristle Worms.177 

Bloodspot Worm; Fringed Worm; Sea Mouse .... 180 

Thread Worm; Sea Leech; Sea Slug.187 

Sea Horse; Australian Sea Horse.191 


















ILLUSTRATIONS xi 


Mudskipper; Blenny; Wrasse.197 

Skate’s Egg; Ray’s Egg; Shark’s Egg.199 

Baby Angler; Sting Ray; Flounder; Fishing Frog . . 201 

Moonfish; Deep Sea Angler; Group of Phosphorescent 

Fish; Baby Sun-fish.205 

Portuguese Man-of-War Fish in Tentacles; Remora on 

Shark.207 

Puffer Fish; Coral Fish.209 

Toad Fish.21S 










WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 


C OME, children! Are you ready? 
Then away we go to the beach, for 
to-day we are to visit the little 
sea people. They are such queer little 
creatures, and they have the strangest 
ways. 

Here is one now, in this rock pool. Do 

I 








































2 WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 


you see him? He is a little starfish. Just 
lift him out carefully, so we can see him 
better. Why, look at what he has done! 
He has snapped off one of his arms. There 
goes another. Why did he do that? 

He did it because he thought a crab or a 
fish had caught him. The fishes and crabs 
and gulls are always gobbling up little 
sea-folk for dinner. That has made the 
poor little fellows try all sorts of tricks to 
protect themselves. 

This brittle star has shown you how he 
does it. When an enemy has caught him 
by an arm, he snaps the arm off. Then 
while the crab or fish is eating it up, the 
brittle star hides away. Of course it isn’t 
very comfortable to lose an arm, but it is 
better than being all swallowed up. 

Besides, he can grow new arms again. 
Two of these are only partly grown out. 
Just see how he wriggles! Hurry and 
put him back into the water. If we do not, 



WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 3 


he will snap off all his arms. These touchy 
little stars are quite apt to do that. It is 
no wonder they are named Brittle Starfish. 



What a lovely home for the little sea-folk 
this rock pool makes! It is full of sea 
water, for at high tide the waves dash all 
over these rocks. That is how the little 
brittle star came to be here. He floated 
in on some big wave, and probably he will 
go back again into the ocean with the next 
high tide. 

The little sea creatures are always coming 
and going like this with the tides. But now 
and then some little fellow will make quite 






4 WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 


a long stay in a nice pool such as this one. 
It is like a tiny baby ocean up here among 
the rocks. This pretty red and green sea¬ 
weed growing here is just like the seaweed 
down there in the real ocean. 

There are flowers here, too, do you say.^ 
Then take this stick and see if you can 
reach that pretty orange one over there. 
Why, where has it gone? A minute ago it 
was blossoming there in the corner, and 
now it is nowhere to be seen. What can 
have happened to it? Well, this is what 
happened. When you touched it with your 
stick, it shrank down on the rock. It did 
that, because that pretty ‘‘flower” isn’t 
really a flower at all. It is a little sea 
animal. People call it a sea anemone, 
because it looks like a lovely blossom grow¬ 
ing in the water. 

But how those fringed petals can sting 
when they are touched! That is the way 
this pretty flowerlike animal protects itself. 



WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 5 


The other little sea creatures have to be 
very careful not to go too close to it. If 
they do, the stinging blossom” holds them 
fast and eats them up. At least, that is the 
way the anemone treats the smaller sea-folk. 
But if some big fish or crab touches it, then 
it shrinks down upon the rock. All its 
bright blossom-arms are folded inside of its 
body, and it looks like a part of the dull 
rock. Even a crab’s bright eyes couldn’t 
spy it there. 

That is how your blossom-animal dis¬ 
appeared. But just look at it now! While 
we have been talking it has raised itself up 
and unfolded its petal-like arms again. It 
thinks that the enemy who gave it that poke 
must have gone away by this time. 

Over here in the pool is another little sea 
fellow who is playing a trick too. Where 
is he.^ He is under that little pile of stones, 
and he is having a nice nap. That is why 
the stones are there. He piled them on his 



6 WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 


back before he went to sleep, because some 
of the big sea-folk are so fond of little sea 
urchins for dinner. That is what this little 
fellow is, — a sea urchin. Since he cannot 
watch out for enemies while he is asleep, he 
just plays this trick on them. He makes 
them think he is nothing but a little pile of 
stones. They never guess that really a nice 
little urchin is under them. 

Isn’t he a clever little fellow.^ Let us 
wake him up and see how he looks. Why, 
he is all covered with sharp spines. He 
looks like a little round pincushion. Those 
spines must keep away ever so many of his 
enemies, for just wouldn’t he be a prickly 
mouthful to swallow.^ It is true that the 
smaller sea-folk do not trouble the little 
urchin very much. He is about like a 
prickly chestnut burr to handle. But the 
big crabs with their great claws can crush 
him easily enough. So can the large fishes, 
too. It is because of these dreadful enemies 



WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 7 


that the little urchin must cover himself 
with stones and seaweed when he wants a 
nap. 

But let us go down on the sand. Other 
little sea-folk live there, and they are queer 

little fellows too. Be 
careful not to slip on 
the rocks. If you do 

Ghost Crab 




Barnacles 

you might be cut on 
these shells. There are hundreds of them 
here, and they have such sharp edges. 

The little sea-folk who live in these shells 
are the Barnacles, and these are their houses. 
If you tried and tried you could never guess 
all the strange things the barnacles do. 
Their life is just like a fairy tale, except 
that it is true. To begin with, every little 
baby barnacle is an orphan. That is be- 




8 WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 


cause his mother throws him out into the 
ocean while he is still in his egg. She has 
no room in her house to bring up a family, 
she thinks. A strange kind of mother, 
isn’t she.^ 

Well, when the baby barnacle finally 
hatches he is scarcely larger than a pin’s 
head. But he has six little feathery legs, 
a long prickly tail, and just one eye in the 
middle of his face. Because he always lies 
on his back, of course he has to swim upside 
down. Isn’t he a topsy-turvy little fellow.^ 

By and by, however, he begins to change. 
He grows two eyes instead of only one. 
Then he goes up to some rock and stands 
awhile on his head. But when he tries to 
move away again he cannot do it, for he is 
stuck fast. All the rest of his life he has to 
stay there, head down. 

When he finds he cannot get away, he 
builds up a little shell house all around him¬ 
self. Because it is very dark inside of it. 



WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 9 


he throws away his eyes. He does not need 
them any more. But he still keeps his 
feet. When he is hungry he pushes them 
out through his'roof and kicks food down 
into his house. 

There are other sea-folk here on the rocks. 
They are the Limpets, and their shells are 
like little pointed cones. They can slowly 
move about if they wish to do so. But, 
at least during the day, they cling to the 
rock as closely as they can. That is because 
of the sea birds. Their sharp eyes are 
always watching for some little shell fellow 
that they can snap up for dinner. 

You could not possibly pick up a little 
limpet shell with your fingers. It holds 
itself too tight to the rock. But that sea 
bird over there knows just how to do it. He 
slips his sharp bill under the edge of the 
shell and gives a quick jerk. Poor little 
limpet! That is the last of him, for pop he 
goes into a hungry stomach. 




10 WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 


Now we must hurry down to the sand. 
If we do not, the tide will be back before 
we have half finished our visit to all these 
funny little sea-folk. There is a little fellow 
over there now. Do you see him? He is 
a little Ghost Crab. Why, look at what he 
is doing. He is hiding behind that pile of 
sand. See him peep over the top of it! 
He is waiting for something. There! Did 
you see that? It was that poor little sand 
fiea he was watching. He pounced right 
out on it, when it hopped by. It couldn’t 
see him there behind his little sand fort. 
Now he is having a nice sand-flea dinner. 

What a tiny fellow the little crab is! 
His body is almost square, and he can’t 
be over two inches wide. And what a queer 
place for his eyes! Do you see where they 
are? They are on the ends of those two 
little stalks, up over his head. Just see him 
stand on his toes and look all around. He 
doesn’t intend to be caught himself. Poor 



WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE ii 



Sand Dollar 


Sea Worm 


little fellow! The beach folk about him 
are all so much larger than he is. Really he 
shouldn’t be away from home in the day 
time. He would be much safer tucked into 

his own little burrow in 
the sand. That is 
where all the other 

ft 

little ghost crabs are. 

Usually 
these little 
fellows run 

about only at night when the big sea-folk 
are asleep. Just now and then some 
hungry little fellow comes out in the day. 
It is because they are exactly the color of 
the sand, that they look like little crab 
ghosts skipping about at night. 

But do come and see this little flat sand 
cake. At least, that is what it looks like, — 
a little round cake made of sand. I do not 
believe you can guess what it really is. 
It is a cousin of that sea urchin we saw 






12 WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 


in the rock pool, the one that was taking 
a nap under his pile of stones. 

“Sand Dollars” people call these little 
urchins. There are hundreds of them living 
on the sand out there in the water. This 
poor little fellow must have been washed up 
here by some big wave. Now he is waiting 
to be carried back again by the next tide. 
He is a very fortunate little castaway to 
have landed just here, for this bunch of 
wet seaweed keeps him damp and cool. 
If he were not in its shade, he would prob¬ 
ably be a very dead and dry little sand 
dollar by this time. The hot sun would 
cook his life out quickly. 

Here is a little crab in the shade of the 
seaweed too. But he isn’t a ghost crab. 
He is a green fellow. See how his sharp 
eyes are watching us! That big claw is 
ready to give us a good pinch if we touch 
him. 

There are crabs and crabs everywhere on 



WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 13 


the beach. You will find them in the tide 
pools, between the cracks of the rocks, down 
in the sand, and out in the water. But like 
this fellow here, each one will be waiting to 
give you a sharp pinch if you touch him. 

These bunches of cast-up seaweed are 
real treasure heaps for us. All sorts of little 
sea-folk get tangled in the seaweed branches 
out in the water. Then the tide washes 
them, seaweed and all, far up on the sand. 
Here they must lie and wait for another big 
wave to carry them back. Of course, the 
little fellows who are caught in it have to 
wait too. 

Quite often there are brittle stars clinging 
to some branch. Their long spiny arms 
look almost like a frond of the seaweed. 
Wee little sponges, and all sorts of tiny 
shells and delicate ‘‘corals” hold fast to the 
seaweed too. If the bunch has been lying 
here for some time, thousands of little sand 
hoppers will pop out of it when we move it. 



14 WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 


But let us roll this stone over and see 
what is under it. Ever so many kinds of 
little worm folk live under the stones. No, 
you need not squirm. Indeed, you will not 
remember to do it, when you see what beau¬ 
tiful creatures the little sea worms are. 
Some of them are a lovely pearl and bright 
green color. Others are all fringed in scarlet 
hairs. Still others are orange, or pink, or 
like a little shining rainbow in the sand. 

So, over with this stone. There! Surely 
enough, here is a little fellow. Just look at 
him! Isn’t he a beauty, even for a worm? 
All down his back are chocolate-colored 
scales. If we disturb him too much, he 
will snap off every one of them. Do look 
at his fringe of shiny golden hairs. Such 
a showy little fellow he is! Yet he is only 
one of the common sea worms. Just wait 
until you see some of the real beauties of 
the family. 

Then here are all the little shell folk in 



WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 15 


their pretty pearly homes. We must get 
acquainted with them too. Just see how 
they are scattered up and down the beach. 
Many more than usual are here this morn¬ 
ing because of the big storm last night. 
The great waves rolled them far up on the 
sand. 

There isn’t time to study them all just 
now. But some day very soon we will have 
a long lesson about these beautiful palaces of 
pearl, and the little shell people who built 
them. All we can do now is to gather up 
whatever ones we want to take home with 
us. 

We must hurry, too, for the tide is com¬ 
ing in fast. It will soon cover the sand here, 
and even dash all over those rocks where we 
saw the pools, you remember. That is 
why we must leave the beach for this time. 
We do not like to be driven off by the waves. 
But the crabs and other little sea-folk will be 
glad to have them come. They are hungry. 



i6 WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 


and in the water are bits of food of all kinds 
for them. 

Now you know where most of the little 
sea-folk live. If we had time to walk down 
to that old wharf, we should find many of 
them clinging to its piles. Little barnacles 
and limpets and anemones would be there. 
And eating into the posts would be the 
boring sea worms. 

Then farther on up the beach where the 
mud banks are, we should come to the 
funny fiddler crabs. And clinging to the 
sea grass in the water are hundreds of tiny 
shell folk. Queer little fishes are there too, 
some of them standing on their heads. 
They are long and slender like the sea grass. 
Even your sharp eyes would have to look 
carefully to spy them there. 

Just like a great city filled with people is 
the ocean beach. Crowded into every nook 
and corner is some little sea person. Each 
one is jostling his neighbor for more room. 



WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 17 


Some live in the rock pools, and some cling 
to the rocks themselves. On the sand some 
of the little sea-folk make their homes, and 
others burrow into it. Many swim in the 
water, and others dig into the sand or mud 
banks. Some bore into any water-soaked 
wood they can find, and others cling to the 
seaweed. Every inch of room is taken in 
this wonderful ocean-beach city. 

We must leave the beach for to-day. 
But we will take with us all the treasures 
we have gathered. Here is the skeleton 
of a sea urchin. It is like a frail round 
box, all covered with beautiful carving. 
This is a little dry sand dollar, and this is a 
baby skate’s egg cradle. 

Here is a tiny white clam’s shell with a 
little round hole in one side. That hole 
was drilled by another shell person, who 
sucked up the little clam through it for a 
meal. 

Here is the shell of the wicked sea person 



i8 WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 


who did it. Those little ridges down there 
in the sand are made by others of his family. 
The Natica shell people usually leave ridges 
like that, as they plough through the sand, 
hunting for little clams to bore to death. 

All these curious things, with our pretty 
shells, will make a nice beginning for a col¬ 
lection of sea curios. Each day we go out 
we will find other interesting things to add 
to it. There will be the queer egg cases 
from which little shell babies have been 
hatched, and the cast-off shells of the funny 
horseshoe crabs. Oh, no end of sea plunder 
we will find on the beach. 

Then there are beautiful foreign shells 
and sea curios that perhaps we will want. 
To get those, we must write to people who 
live near foreign ocean beaches. They 
will be glad to send us their shells and curios 
in exchange for the ones which live on our 
coasts. Many people keep beautiful shells 
and ocean curios for sale, and of course 



WHERE THE LITTLE SEA-FOLK LIVE 19 


there are also great stores where we can buy 
them. 

But, children, look at those waves! We 
certainly will get a good splashing if we do 
not hurry along. We cannot stay another 
minute to-day. To-morrow we will come 
again for another visit to these queer little 
children of the sea. 



CHAPTER II 

who’s who among the starfish 


S UCH a rainy morning! No trip to 
the beach to-day. What shall we 
do instead.^ You want to hear more 
about the little sea-folk, you say.^ Very 
well. Suppose we begin with the starfishes. 
You remember they are the little fellows 
who snap off their arms if anything catches 
them. That is what the one in the rock 
pool did, when we lifted him out of the 
water. 

He belonged to the brittle starfishes, and 

he had only five arms. But a pretty cousin 

of his has — you cannot possibly guess how 

many! — over eighty thousand arms. The 

five which grow out of his body divide again 

and again until there are thousands of them. 

They curl all around him and make him 

look like a bunch of feathery seaweed. 

Even when he straightens them out and 

20 


WHO’S WHO AMONG THE STARFISH 21 


walks on “tiptoes” on the ends, they still 
look like bunches of seaweed. Poor little 
fishes get all tangled in them. The starfish 
likes that, however, for he eats them up, one 

by one, for 
dinner. It is 








' sTTn": 

looks like a 
little round 
basketful of 
fishes that 
people call 
him the Bas¬ 
ket Starfish. 

Keep a good watch on the bunches of 
seaweed left on the beach, for sometimes a 
basket starfish is caught in the seaweed and 
washed up by the waves. Especially after 
a big storm at sea you may find one there, 
and sometimes they are even swept into the 
rock pools. 


Basket Starfish 



22 WHO’S WHO AMONG THE STARFISH 


If you have good sharp eyes, perhaps you 
will find one of the little dwarf brittle stars. 
He will be scarcely a quarter of an inch wide, 
and his five little arms will look like tiny 
threads. His color is gray. But the larger 
brittle stars are usually purple, and the 
basket stars are brown and dull yellow. 
Now you will feel well acquainted with the 
brittle-star family, won’t you, when you 
meet them on the beach 

They are plain folks, these poor brittle 
stars, beside their gay cousins, the “regular” 
starfishes. You must surely meet this 
handsome family. Some of them are bright 
red, with pink and white arms. Others are 
scarlet or orange or yellow. Sometimes one 
will dress in a whole suit of rich purple. 

The Daisy Starfish is very fancy. It has 
a dozen or more arms in a row around its 
body. That makes it look like the daisy 
flower. And it is all covered with bands 
and spots of red and purple. Perhaps you 



WHO’S WHO AMONG THE STARFISH 23 


can find one on the rocks in the shallow 
water at low tide. 

Then there are the little, bright red fel¬ 
lows, the Blood Starfishes. They are such 
pretty creatures in the water. But they 
fade out to pale yellow when they die. 
You must surely look for some of these gay 
little stars at low tide. You will find plenty 
of them in the pools among the rocks. 

Nearly all baby starfishes are hatched 
from eggs which their mothers have thrown 
out into the ocean. But these little red 
blood starfishes are not treated in that 
heartless way. The mother of a little 
family of these stars is careful and kind. 
She keeps her baby starfish eggs fastened 
around her mouth until they hatch. Even 
then she carries her wee babies about with 
her, until she is sure that they can safely 
take care of themselves. 

All up and down the western coast, from 
Oregon and California to Mexico, live other 



24 WHO’S WHO AMONG THE STARFISH 


pretty starfishes. On the Mexican beach is 
the Sun Starfish. It has so many arms it 
looks like a big round sunflower. In Cal¬ 


ifornia there are cunning little five-pointed 



little fellows, only an inch or so 
across. Like baby starfish they 
look, beside the big giant starfishes 
which grow there too. These 
giants have great thick bodies, and they 
are fully two feet across. They could 
swallow ever so many little cushion stars 
right down at one meal. 

You cannot imagine how a starfish eats. 
It is the strangest affair. If it is an oyster 
that he wants for dinner, he begins by 





WHO’S WHO AMONG THE STARFISH 25 


folding his arms tightly around it. Then 
he pulls and pulls, until the poor oyster 
cannot any longer hold his shell closed. 
When the shell is wide open, the starfish 
does the queerest thing. He pushes his 
stomach right out of his body, all over the 
soft oyster. That finishes the oyster, for 
slowly the starfish eats him up. 

How the starfishes do like oysters! Hun¬ 
dreds and hundreds of them will all settle 
down at once on an oyster bed. Then how 
they eat. They ruin the bed. That makes 
the oyster fishermen very angry, for you 
know that people themselves want to eat 
the oysters. They do not want the star¬ 
fishes to rob them like that. 

So the oyster fishermen let down big 
bunches of strings. These catch on the 
starfishes’ rough bodies, and when the 
strings are pulled up, the starfishes have 
to come too. Then the fishermen put 
them in boiling water. Of course that 



26 WHO’S WHO AMONG THE STARFISH 


seems very cruel, but do you know, it is 
almost impossible to kill a starfish? Long 
ago the fishermen would just cut them in 
two and throw them back into the ocean. 
What do you suppose happened then? 
You can guess, can’t you, for you remember 
about the brittle starfish in the pool? 

It was just the same with these larger 
starfishes. If one were cut in two, each 
half grew itself out into a full new starfish 
again. Then there were two, instead of 
only one as at first, to feed on the oysters. 
Or if a starfish were cut into several pieces, 
each piece would grow into a whole new 
starfish. That would make just so many 
more of the tormenting fellows. Finally, 
the fishermen found there was no other way 
to be rid of them, except by the boiling 
water. 

But these are not the only queer things 
about a starfish. As for his head — well, 
he hasn’t any. But he has a mouth. It is 



WHO’S WHO AMONG THE STARFISH 27 


in the center of his body on the under side. 
That makes it easy for him to push his 
stomach out through it when he eats. 



Starfish Opening Oyster 


Rosy Feather 

On the tip of each arm he has 
one little red eye. He keeps his 
feet — where do you suppose? 

You never, never can guess. He 
keeps them tucked under his 
arms. There are little holes in 
his body where he folds them 
away when he is not walking. 

They are such queer feet too. 

They look like little threads with 
tiny suckers on the ends. Now what do 

you think of this strange little sea person? 
Before we leave this funny starfish family, 



Sea Lily 



28 WHO’S WHO AMONG THE STARFISH 


though, you must meet just one more little 
relative. It is the very loveliest one of 
them all. It is a distant cousin, and it is 
called the Rosy Feather Star. That is 
because it is all rosy red. 

Now listen to what happens to this lovely 
little feather star. Of all the starfish fam¬ 
ily, this little southern cousin has the 
strangest life. When it is young it grows 
on a stem just like a flower. It lives out 
in the deep ocean, far away in the West 
Indies. If you could see it there, you 
would think it was a lovely lily growing 
in the sea. But it isn’t a happy little 
flower at all. It longs and longs to swim 
about, like all the other little ocean folks 
around it. Of course it can’t do that, being 
only a little flower growing on a stem. 

And yet — one day a strange thing hap¬ 
pens. Its pretty flower head breaks ofiF, 
and then the little feather star is free. Free 
to swim far away with the other little sea- 



WHO’S WHO AMONG THE STARFISH 29 


folk there. All this time the pretty feather 
star was not really a flower at all. It was 
always a little sea creature like the rest. 
But Nature made it start its strange life 
like a lovely plant. 

Isn’t that just like a fairy story? Think 
of having to stay forever fastened in just 
one place, as if a wicked ocean witch had put 
a dreadful spell on you, while all the time 
you wanted — oh, how you wanted!— to 
float about, all glad and free. Then one 
day your head just broke right off, and you 
found you weren’t a little plant at all. You 
were a lovely ocean sprite, free at last to 
swim the great sea waves. Your beautiful 
rosy arms were like curling feathers all about 
you. When you wearied, you could sink to 
rest in some lovely pool among the rocks. 

Yes, it is like a wonderful ocean fairy tale. 
But it is a "‘really truly” one. Everything 
happens just this way to the little rosy 
feather star. 




CHAPTER III 

THE SEA urchins’ FAMILY TREE 


N OW would you like to know what 

sort of a fellow that little spiny 

urchin is, — the one we saw in the 

rock pool, taking a nap under his pile of 

stones? He looked like a prickly little 

chestnut burr, you remember. 

Well, to begin with those spines. There 

are at least three thousand of them, and he 

needs every single one. What does he do 

with them? He uses them like little stilts 

to walk on, when he is in a great hurry. 

How should you like to have three thousand 

feet to manage when you wanted to go fast? 

But that isn’t nearly all the use a little 

urchin has for his prickles. For one thing, 

they are a great help to him when the waves 

are strong. Being such a little round ball 

of a fellow, he would be rolled over and over 

endlessly, if it were not for his spines. But 

30 


THE SEA URCHINS’ FAMILY TREE 31 


as it is, his sharp little prickles can push deep 
into the sand and help his other feet to hold 
him steady. 

His other feet? Oh, yes, he has dozens 
of others. In fact, there are more than a 
thousand of them. A little sea urchin does 
not think three thousand stilt-feet are 
nearly enough. So he has all these little 
thread-feet besides, with suckers on the ends 
of them, like those of the starfish. 

With these little sucker-feet to hold him 
fast, he can walk right up the sides of the 
rocks. Of course he could not do that if he 
had just his spines to stand on. They can 
help only to brace and steady him as he goes. 
When you go to the rock pools again, you 
must watch for these prickly urchins walk¬ 
ing slowly up the rocks. 

Just notice how clean a little urchin is. 
Shouldn’t you think that bits of seaweed 
and dirt would be always catching on those 
sharp spines? Well, they do. But the 



32 THE SEA URCHINS' FAMILY TREE 


little urchin knows how to manage about 
them. 

Between his spines grow hundreds of tiny 
pincers. Some of them are always going 
snap-snap, picking off whatever has caught 
on him, for the urchin is a very tidy person. 
He believes in keeping quite clean. Of 
course it is different when he wants to sleep, 
or is especially afraid of being eaten up. 
Then his little pincers pile seaweed or tiny 
stones on his back to hide him. 

Besides all this, the pincers snap up any 
wee sea creatures that the urchin would like 
to eat. Although he usually chews away on 
the seaweed for a meal, his five strong little 
teeth can crush tiny ocean folk too. 

Now let us look at the pretty urchin 
skeleton we found on the sand. These big 
knobs are where the spines fitted on, and the 
small knobs were for the pincers. Through 
all these dozens of tiny holes the urchin 
pushed out his sucker feet. An urchin keeps 



THE SEA URCHINS’ FAMILY TREE 33 


his feet inside of his body when he isn’t 
walking on them, just as a starfish does. 

Now shall we talk about the urchin’s 
clothes? The little urchin folk are very 
fond of dressing up in pretty colors and 
shapes. One showy little fellow, who lives 


Sea Urchin Test of Sea Urchin Heart Urchin 

in the West Indies, has great broad spines 
like paddles. Usually he colors them a 
lovely scarlet. Another beautiful one you 
can find in Florida. It has rose-pink and 
white spines and a bright yellow body. 

Then if you go to the sea beaches of Maine, 
or away up to Washington and Oregon, you 
can find all the pretty green urchins you 
want. These little fellows have such a long 
name that it will wrap around them several 







34 the sea URCHINS’ FAMILY TREE 


times — Strongylocentrotus drohachiensis. 
What do you suppose would happen if you 
ever had to say that in a hurry? 

There is one wicked urchin which you 
children must not touch. It is a velvety 
purple-black one that lives on the Florida 
beach. If you try to pick it up, it will break 
off its spines and leave them sticking in your 
fingers. Then they will sting and hurt you 
badly. 

But if you could find the Rosy Heart 
Urchin it would not treat you like that. 
Way out in the deep water of the ocean it 
lives, and it is just the shape of a little heart. 
Sometimes a great storm will wash one of 
these little fellows up on the beach. But by 
that time its pretty rose-red coat of spines 
is all faded and broken. 

Two more urchins you will surely like to 
find. One is a big beautiful purple fellow, 
and it lives all along the western coast from 
Alaska down to Mexico. Its skeleton—or 



THE SEA URCHINS’ FAMILY TREE 35 


“test,” as people call it — is a delicate 
lavender color. Ladies line these lovely 
round shelly boxes with pretty silk, and use 
them for jewel cases. They are wonderfully 
beautiful things, but so frail that they must 
be handled very carefully. 

The other urchin is a wee bit of a baby 
dwarf, only about an inch or so across. 
You can find this cunning little fellow any¬ 
where all up and down our eastern coast. 
The little “pea” urchin he is called, because 
he is so tiny and round. 

Scarcely any two of these sea urchins use 
the same color for their spiny suits. Some 
have chosen a nice rich purple, and others 
a pale primrose. Some think that a queer 
dull red is the very best, and some dress in 
tan and brown. Over in England they 
wear bright green. Such vanity for such 
little folk! 

Now what about the round sand dollar 
we found on the beach He looked like a 



36 THE SEA URCHINS’ FAMILY TREE 


poor urchin that had been stepped on and 
“squashed.” But nothing had really hap¬ 
pened to him. The sand dollars are all flat 
little fellows like that. 

On the top of each one is the faint pattern 
of a star, and that tells you a story. It says 
that once, long ago, the sand dollars and 
starfishes were very close relations. So close 
that even now they all wear the same little 
coat-of-arms, the shape of a star. 

One more secret you must have to go 
with this. Imagine a starfish’s arms folded 
up over the top of him. Wouldn’t it look 
very much like the skeleton, the test, of a 
sea urchin? Just look at the outline that 
the big knobs make on the test. You see 
that this round urchin hints of its relation 
to the starfishes, too. 

Surely enough, long ages ago these star- 
patterned sea-folk all belonged to the same 
family. The beautiful sea lily which turns 
into a rosy feather star was the mother of 



THE SEA URCHINS’ FAMILY TREE 37 


them all. There were great forests of these 
lovely sea lilies in the ocean long ago. And 
ever since, little by little, the sea lilies’ 
children have been changing their forms. 





Sand Dollar Split Sand Dollar 

Changing them, until now we know 
them as the starfish and the sea 
urchin and the sand dollar. Oh, 
m the ocean there are many won- Cucumber 
derful fairy stories like this, and every one 
is a true one. 

But to go back to our sand dollar. He 
has spines too, only they are much shorter 
than those on the sea urchins. One “dol¬ 
lar” has cracks in his round body, as if he 
were splitting up into arms. These little 




38 THE SEA URCHINS' FAMILY TREE 


cracked dollars you will find in plenty from 
the Carolinas down to Florida. 

Another strange little creature lives in 
the tide pool. It also is a child of the long- 
ago sea-lily mother. People call it the 
Sea Cucumber because its body is cucumber 
shape. You will find it clinging to the 
rocks, in sheltered cracks and corners. 

Oh, the trick that little cucumber fellow 
will play on you. At first you will think it 
is only another bunch of red seaweed. But 
just try to pick it up and see what happens. 
As you touch it, the little bunch will fairly 
squirt itself at you. 

'VMiy does it do that.^ Because you have 
hold of the little cucumber’s mouth, and he 
doesn’t like that. So he throws his mouth 
away, just as the little brittle stars throw off 
their arms. All of this is because the mouth 
of the sea cucumber is like a pretty bunch 
of bright red seaweed. 

But throwing away his mouth is not all 



THE SEA URCHINS’ FAMILY TREE 39 


that this funny cucumber does. If you 
give him a sharp poke, he will throw out his 
insides too. Then he will be nothing but a 
little skin bag. However, that will not 
trouble him very much. He will just grow 
himself all new again, inside of his tough 
skin. 

Aren’t these little sea-folk the strangest 
creatures? Just think of being really a 
little animal, and having the name of a 
vegetable, and a mouth like a bunch of 
seaweed. But of course he cannot help it if 
he does look like a Dill pickle. His seaweed 
mouth keeps the fishes and crabs from gob¬ 
bling him up. They are not smart enough 
to see that he is really good to eat. 

There are several kinds and colors of 
these sea cucumbers, and you can find some 
one or other of them on almost every ocean 
beach in the world. They will not always 
be the same shape. Like an earthworm 
they can stretch out long and slim, or swell 



40 THE SEA URCHINS’ FAMILY TREE 


themselves up into a round fat bunch. 
However, when they are resting quietly, 
they look like the cucumber for which they 
are named. 

A little cousin of the cucumber lives in 
the wet sand. You will have to look for him 
when the tide is low. He is longer and 
slimmer than his big relative, and of course 
there are queer things about him too. 

One thing is that you can look right 
through his sides, almost as if he were a tiny 
glass bottle. There inside of him you can 
see the sand and little shells and stones he 
has eaten. He always eats sand for his 
meals. 

Of course sand seems a queer thing to eat. 
But the little Synapta has a good reason for 
doing it. There are wee bits of food all 
through the sand. The pieces are too tiny 
to be picked up separately, so he swallows it 
all down together. 

Perhaps when you find a little Synapta 



THE SEA URCHINS’ FAMILY TREE 41 


cucumber, he will have on his overcoat. If 
he is wearing it, then of course you cannot 
see through his sides until you take it off. 
It is true that he wears it much of the time. 
It is a funny little coat and he makes it all 
himself. 

First he glues some sand into a little collar 
around his neck. Then he squeezes it down 
on to his body. When that is done he makes 
another collar and pushes it down. And so 
on, until his body is all covered up by his 
little sandy coat. The inside of the coat is 
very smooth, so it will not hurt his little 
body. From the outside it makes him look 
just like the sand where he lives. That 
helps wonderfully to protect him from the 
big sea-folk, who snap up every little cu¬ 
cumber they can find. Because of his sandy 
coat, they do not spy him out. But you 
will know him by his seaweed mouth. 

Another strange thing the little Synapta 
does too. Every now and then he breaks 



42 THE SEA URCHINS’ FAMILY TREE 


off little pieces from the end of his body. 
Isn’t that a queer way to keep from growing 
too tall? But something even stranger still 
he does. If an enemy catches him, he 
breaks himself all up into tiny bits. 

Is that the last of him? Oh, no. He well 
knows just where to break himself up. He 
knows, too, just how to grow a new mouth 
on the end of each broken piece. When that 
is done, each piece goes on its way, a whole 
new Synapta cucumber. Even his big 
sea cucumber cousin can break himself into 
two pieces, and then grow a mouth on each 
of them. 



CHAPTER IV 


THE CRAB FAMILY 

O P all the big ocean’s smaller chil¬ 
dren, the crabs behave the very 
worst. They are fierce little fight¬ 
ers, always ready for a battle with any 
one. At least, most of them are. They 
are smart as whips.” Such tricks as they 
play on the other poor little sea-folk! 

You remember the tiny ghost crab we 
saw on the beach, — the one who hid be¬ 
hind his little sand fort, and sprang out to 
catch the beach fiea.^ He was a clever little 
fellow, but the Hermit Crab is smarter still. 

You will find these little hermit fellows on 
almost any beach. Up in Alaska, over in 
Maine, in sunny Florida waters, on English 
beaches, in the tropics, and even deep down 
in the ocean the hermit crabs find a home. 

Of one thing about these hermits you 
may be sure. Wherever they choose to 

43 


44 


THE CRAB FAMILY 


live, all the other little sea-folk there will just 
have to stand back and let them do exactly 
as they please. A hermit crab always in¬ 
sists on that. If any little sea 
fellow objects, then he must 

stand up and 
fight about 
it. Usually 

Coral Crab 



Hermit Crab 


Masked 

Crab 




he ends down in 
the hermit’s 
stomach. 

You must surely look for one of these 
peppery little gentlemen the next time you 
are on the beach. He will probably be 
bumping and tumbling along the sand in 
the shallow water, peering into this shell 
and that. Of course he is out house¬ 
hunting as usual. A hermit crab spends 
much of his time looking for different houses 





THE CRAB FAMILY 


45 


to live in. He has no stout shell of his own 
to cover his soft body, and so he has to steal 
some one else’s shell house. He well knows 
that all sorts of big sea-folk would pounce 
on him, if he were not all covered up by a 
shelly coat. 

So up and down the beach he goes, or 
across the rock-pool floor, peeping into all 
sorts of shells. There is a report about him 
that he doesn’t care whether they are “for 
rent” or not. If he finds one he likes, and 
some little shell person is living in it, out he 
jerks the little fellow and eats him up. 

Even worse things than that he does, so 
people say. Sometimes he finds a shell 
with another little hermit crab in it. Then 
there is trouble, big trouble. They fight 
and tug and pull until one or the other is 
beaten. If the little robber hermit is the 
victor, he pops himself out of his old shell 
and into the one he has just stolen. Per¬ 
haps, after all that fighting and trouble, he 



46 


THE CRAB FAMILY 


is not very comfortable there. Then off he 
goes to find another house which fits better. 

A hermit crab starts his house-hunting 
when he is just a tiny fellow. How proud 
and happy he is with his first home. Usu¬ 
ally it is an old whelk or periwinkle shell. 
That does quite well for a while. But by 
and by the little hermit isn’t happy any 
more. His house has begun to pinch. 
That is because he has grown bigger. 

More and more it pinches until some¬ 
thing must be done about it. Then off he 
goes to find a larger home. Of course the 
hermit keeps on growing, and so again and 
again he has to change into larger houses. 
At last it is almost a habit with him to hunt 
for new shell homes and move into them. 

A hard time the little hermits have with 
the big sea-folk. The large fishes are always 
gobbling them down, shell and all. Even 
their very own cousins, the big crabs, keep 
a sharp watch for any little hermit they can 



THE CRAB FAMILY 


47 


find. This danger everywhere about them 
has made the poor hermit crabs use all sorts 
of schemes to protect themselves. 

One little fellow lets a bright red sponge 
grow all over his shell. He well knows how 
safe that makes him, for live sponges taste 
very badly indeed. Fishes cannot bear 
even the smell of them. So of course they 
will not touch a hermit crab who is all 
covered over with one. Fortunately the 
little hermit does not dislike the smell of 
his bright sponge. 

Another clever little hermit lets a sea 
anemone ride on his shell. The anemone 
has stinging threads in its body, and it 
throws them out at whatever comes near. 
The threads paralyze the very small sea-folk, 
and sting the mouths of fishes. Of course 
the fishes do not like that at all. So they 
let any little hermit well alone who carries 
a sea anemone around with him. 

In another way the anemone helps too. 



48 


THE CRAB FAMILY 


As it grows larger and larger, it finally 
covers the hermit’s shell all up. After a 
while it absorbs it. Then the little hermit 
is surely happy, for he can stretch and grow 
all he wishes, in the soft body of the anem¬ 
one. That means that he will never need 
to go house-hunting again. 

Some of the little hermits have bright red 
bodies, and others are pale and shiny. One 
little fellow has black tiptoes. Usually you 
will see the hermit’s feet and part of his 
body sticking out of his shell. That will be 
when he is walking or eating. But when 
danger is near, he pops away back into his 
shell house and shuts the door. 

What do you suppose he uses for a door? 
He uses one of his feet. It grows very large 
and hard and thick, and just fits into the 
opening. Not many enemies can get past 
that great claw-door. 

There are some southern hermit crabs 
who are dreadful thieves. People call them 



THE CRAB FAMILY 


49 


the Robber Crabs. That is because they 
are always stealing cocoanuts. Right up 
the trees they crawl, and with their sharp 
claws pick open the cocoanuts and eat them. 
These hermits are big fellows, two feet long. 
They have burrows at the foot of the trees, 
and they live in the ocean only part of the 
time. 

But the hermit crabs are not the only 
curious ones in the family. On English 
beaches in the wet sand lives the funny 
Masked Crab. He has a shell of his own 
which grows on his back and covers it. 
And in his shell are wrinkles which make it 
look like a funny face, or a mask. No two 
faces are alike. Some are solemn, and some 
are smiling. Others are cross and ugly. 
Really it seems as if the whole family had 
dressed up in comic masks for a frolic. 
Every one who sees these funny faces has 
to laugh at them, for they are so ridiculous. 

Then down in Florida lives another queer 



50 


THE CRAB FAMILY 


little crab — “the ’fraid one/’ children call 
him. Poor little fellow! He just had no 
peace at all, until one day he happened to 
think of something. He would hide under 
an empty shell. Then the big sea-folk— 
wicked creatures I — could not find him 
and eat him up. And so, ever since, the 
little ’fraid one has held an empty shell over 
his back, like a big umbrella. To do it he 
has to grab it fast with two of his legs. 
Just think of always having to hold two 
legs up over one’s head. But the little crab 
had much rather do that than go without 
his safe umbrella. Of course the big sea 
creatures do not care about empty shells, 
and they never guess that a fat little mor¬ 
sel of a fellow is hiding under this one. 

Another timid little crab thought of a 
different place to hide. It slipped into a 
shell where an oyster was living. The 
oyster really has two shells, one on each side 
of his body. But they are hinged together. 



THE CRAB FAMILY 


51 


and they open like a money purse when the 
oyster wants to eat. If danger comes near, 
he snaps his two-sided shell fast together. 
The little crab who hides in the oyster shell 
is a wee thing. It measures only about an 
inch. The oyster is ever so much larger, 
really almost like a giant beside the little 
crab. Of course that makes the wee crab 
feel very safe; and the oyster seems to like 
having a little lodger live with him. 

Most crabs have a stout shell, covered 
with spines and knobs. But this little 
crab has smoothed away all its prickles, so 
as not to hurt the oyster’s soft body. It 
has made its shell very thin too, for of 
course it does not need a stout one of its 
own any more. The thick oyster shell 
protects it far better than its own ever did. 

A dainty pink-and-white little lady is this 
oyster crab. Usually it is only the lady 
crabs who slip into the oyster shells to live. 
The gentlemen oyster crabs prefer to stay 



52 


THE CRAB FAMILY 


outside, where they can swim around as 
they wish. They are even smaller than 
their little crab wives, and they dress in a 
suit of brown. Perhaps now and then you 
have seen one of these wee pink-and-white 
lady crabs in your oyster stew at table. 

There are other tiny crabs too, who 
‘‘room” with the big sea-folk. Some of the 
little “pea” crabs live in the shells of the 
sea urchins. Others take lodgings with the 
hermit crabs in their stolen shell houses. 
But most of the crabs depend on their own 
shells to protect them. Usually the color 
and shape of a crab’s shell is like the rock 
and sand and seaweed around it. 

Imagine this prickly fellow among the 
rocks or coral. As long as he keeps still, 
he looks just like a piece of the coral. On 
the Florida rocks, and even farther north, is 
where he lives. 

Another queer crab person lives on the 
sand in the water. When he wants to sleep 



THE CRAB FAMILY 


53 


he folds his legs close to his body. Then he 
looks exactly like a small round stone. He 
is called the Box Crab, and he can be found 
from the Middle States down to Florida. 
On the Pacific coast from Washington to 
Mexico live other kinds of boxlike crabs. 
Some of them are great fellows nearly a foot 
broad. Although they look like big stones, 
or rough shells, they are not any better 
hidden than the little Kelp Crab. 

He is a tiny fellow, only about two inches 
square. His color is yellow-green, and it 
just matches the seaweed where he lives. 
You will find him all along the California 
coast, in the seaweed on the rocks. He 
isn’t a ’fraid little crab at all, for he knows 
what sharp eyes it takes to spy him there 
in the kelp. 

Little squatty Toad Crabs too live in 
shallow water on both the northern Pacific 
and Atlantic coasts. They belong to the 
family of ‘"spider” crabs, as people call 



54 


THE CRAB FAMILY 


them. They do make you think of spiders, 
with their long legs and small fat bodies. 
Except for the hermits, these funny spider 
crabs are the smartest ones in all the family. 
They are lazy folk, always sitting around in 
some corner and taking a nap. However, 
long ago they found that was a dangerous 
thing to do. The fishes think that nothing 
tastes as good as a little spider crab. Of 
course the crabs couldn’t stand that. So 
they had to think of some trick to deceive 
the fishes. 

The trick is to dress all up in seaweed and 
sponges and anemones. Then the fishes 
never suspect that a fat little spider crab is 
anywhere around. To dress up like that is 
hard work. First the little crab tears off 
a bit of seaweed. Then he holds it in his 
mouth for awhile. That is to make it 
gluey, so it will stick on his back. Often 
the seaweed does not stay the first time the 
crab holds it against him. Then he has to 



THE CRAB FAMILY 


55 


chew it again. Perhaps several times he 
has to try patiently to make it stick. 
Finally it is fastened on. Then he begins 
with a new piece, and so on and on, until at 
last he is all covered up. 

They are clever little fellows, these spider 
crabs. There is no deceiving them. People 






Cow Boy Crab 


have changed them 
from one place to an¬ 
other to see what they 
would do. One was put where no seaweed 
was growing. Only sponges were there. 

It did not take the little crab long to 
notice that no seaweed grew anywhere near. 
So he hurried fast to pull off all of his own 
seaweed and throw it away. Then he 



56 


THE CRAB FAMILY 


patiently set to work to cover himself with 
the sponges. Another little fellow changed 
his green seaweed for red. He did that 
because he was put where only red seaweed 
grew. 

Down in the warm ocean where the coral 
grows, lives another little crab. He too 
knows very well indeed how to take care of 
himself. In each front claw he holds a 
stinging anemone. If you should go too 
near him, he would wave the anemones at 
you. 

That is what he does when an enemy 
starts toward him. As you know, most of 
the ocean folk are very careful about swim¬ 
ming too close to an anemone’s stinging 
threads. Sharply the little crab eyes what¬ 
ever comes near him, ready for any signs 
of danger. A regular ocean cowboy he is, 
with a weapon in each hand. 

He makes a gay picture, this little fighter 
crab there on his coral. Around his legs 



THE CRAB FAMILY 


57 


are bands of purple, and his body is yellow 
and pale rose. The anemones are green, and 
the coral is pink. Perhaps sometimes he is 
mistaken for a bright anemone, or a part of 
the coral. That would help to protect him, 
for of course the big sea people cannot eat 
such things. 

Indeed that is probably why the little 
crab wears just those colors, for Nature 
never wastes color. There is always a good 
reason for its being wherever it is, on the 
flowers, birds, animals, shells, and on all 
these little sea-folk. In some way it helps 
either to hide them from their enemies, or 
else it warns their enemies to let them alone. 

Mother Nature may think she is keeping 
it a secret, — why she puts so much color in 
the world. But you children can see right 
through her trick, if you watch carefully. 
Any little baby grasshopper can tell it to 
you. 

In the spring he is bright green to match 



58 


THE CRAB FAMILY 


the green grass. If he were any other color 
— bright red, for instance — he would show 
wherever he was. But in the autumn he 
changes to a striped red and yellow suit. 
That makes him match the grass and weeds 
which then have also turned red and yellow. 

A harmless little grass snake is green, so 
as to be well hidden in the grass. But the 
deadly poisonous coral snake has bright red 
and yellow and black bands, which show 
exactly where he is. All creatures well 
know his “warning” colors, which tell them 
to keep far out of his way. A hornet’s 
yellow bands tell us the same thing. 

The bright colors of the birds, however, 
match the flowers and gay fruits and leaves 
in the south. That is where much of their 
year is spent, and where they have many 
enemies. Where there are exceptions to 
this general rule, there are especial reasons 
for it. 

With the animals it is the same. Most 



THE CRAB FAMILY 


59 


of those which stay in the far snowy north 
all winter change into a white fur suit to 
match the snow. And the colors of our 
little sea-folk here wonderfully “hide” them, 
although they may really be in plain sight 
all the time. 

Very gay suits some of the crabs wear. 
The “lady crab” dresses in white, with rings 
and dots of purple and red-brown. She 
usually buries herself up to her eyes in the 
sand, for she knows what a showy person 
she is. It would never be safe to let the big 
sea-folk get a glimpse of her. 

This lady crab can swim when she wishes, 
for her hind legs are flattened into little 
swimming paddles. She is very proud of 
those paddles, for not all of the crabs have 
them. Most of them have to walk about 
on their tiptoes. Up and down the Atlantic 
coast the lady crab lives, with only her 
bright eyes showing above the sand, watch¬ 
ing all that goes on. 



6o 


THE CRAB FAMILY 


The ‘‘Blue” Crab lives on the Atlantic 
coast, where it is muddy. His body is 
green, his spines red-tipped, and his feet 
are blue. He is the soft-shelled crab which 
we like to eat. We will learn what “soft- 
shelled” means when we study about the 
baby crab folk. 

A big red-brown crab with yellow legs 
lives on our western coast. He is-at least 
four or five inches long, and seven inches 
across. People like to eat him too. All 
the way from Alaska to Mexico live the little 
Shore Crabs. One is purple and the other is 
yellow. Only about an inch wide are these 
little fellows, and there are hundreds of 
them. You cannot miss finding them. 

But loveliest of all the family is the 
Orchid Crab. It has a purple back, edged 
with rose. Its body and legs are yellow, its 
claws rose-red. You will find it in the warm 
south, in southern Florida and the West 
Indies. Very often these showy crabs live 




THE CRAB FAMILY 


6i 


somewhat back from the water, in burrows 
at the roots of trees. There their rosy 
claws look like bright petals dropped from 
some flower. 


Perhaps some of you have already seen 
the Fiddler Crabs. They are such queer 



around. The other little 
claw generally goes too, like a fiddle and 
its bow. That is why people call them the 
fiddler crabs. 

Farther and farther away from the ocean 
these crabs are learning to live. To do it 
they have followed back up the rivers which 




62 


THE CRAB FAMILY 


empty into the sea. Now some of them can 
get along nicely with water that is almost 
all fresh. They have to press back up the 
waterways to find a place to live, for there 
are hundreds upon hundreds of these little 
fiddler crabs on the Atlantic beaches. 

It is the funniest sight to watch a little 
fiddler dig his burrow. First he scrapes up 
some sand or mud into a little ball. Then 
his sharp eyes look all around in every 
direction. They are up on the ends of high 
stalks, so he can see quite a distance. He 
looks so fierce and secret you would think 
he was doing something dreadfully wicked. 
If all is safe, he scampers off with his mud 
ball and throws it away. After one more 
long look around, back he hurries for an¬ 
other load. 

Again and again he does this, until he has 
dug a deep burrow with a little room at the 
end of it. When it is finished how proud 
he is of his little house. In his doorway he 



THE CRAB FAMILY 


63 


sits and watches what the rest of the world 
is doing. Always that great claw is ready to 
wave fiercely at any danger which comes 
near. 

A little fiddler crab always backs into his 
house. That leaves his great claw facing 
his doorway, and a good hard pinch he gives 
anything which tries to get in. Of course 
he cannot always be at home. So if you 
watch carefully, perhaps you will see him 
coming from market with his groceries. 
He uses only one kind. That is seaweed. 
Carefully he rolls it up into a little ball, so 
he can carry it easily. If any other crab 
has stolen in while Mr. Fiddler was away, 
out that crab comes with a cracking jerk. 

Little dwarfs and great giants too there 
are in the crab family. The wee dwarfs are 
hairy little fellows, just about a quarter of 
an inch wide. They dress in striped red 
suits with white dots. Only where the 



64 


THE CRAB FAMILY 


water is warm can they live, from the 
Middle Atlantic States down to Florida. 

Under little stones close to the water you 
must look for these funny midget crabs. 
You will know them by their tiny, broad 
claws. On English beaches people call 
them little Broad-claws. Nut crabs, pea 
crabs, and dwarfies, the children name 
them. Tiny as they are, they fight fierce 
little battles with each other. And like all 
the big crabs, they snap off a leg if it is 
caught. Another one soon grows out, just 
as do the arms on the starfishes. 

The giant crab — oh, you would not like 
to meet him. His great legs stretch eighteen 
feet wide, from one tip to the other. Think 
of such a creature coming after you along 
the beach. But you need not be afraid, 
for this huge giant lives in far-away Japan. 

One other crab person we must meet. 
He is the odd one of the family, and really 
not a crab at all. He is only a distant 



THE CRAB FAMILY 


65 


relation, although people call him the 
Horseshoe Crab. That is because his body 
is horseshoe shape. On the end is a long 
sharp tail. 

In the spring you will see plenty of these 
horseshoe crabs on the beach. But for 



Giant Crab and Little Broad Claws 


most of the year they live in the water close 
to the shore. The mother horseshoes come 
out on the beach to lay their eggs in the 
warm sand. A few weeks later the babies 
are hatched. Then away they scuttle to 













66 


THE CRAB FAMILY 


the water, dozens and dozens of wee little 
horseshoe crabs. 

Every now and then you will find one of 
their cast-off shells on the sand. It will be 
just the shape of the crab, even to the little 
legs underneath. There will be four eyes 
in the shell too, for these queer crab folk do 
not think two eyes are enough. So they 
grow another pair of very tiny ones, close 
to the first spine. They intend to see all 
that is going on in the world. 

You will find these cast-off shells, because 
every little while the horseshoe crabs change 
their shell coats too, just as the other crabs 
do. Although the shells are horny and 
brittle, they can be kept for years if they 
are handled carefully. You must surely 
look for some of these funny little cast-off 
sea-horseshoes, for they will make quaint 
specimens for your collection. 

One more funny thing about the crab 
family you must not miss. You must 



THE CRAB FAMILY 


67 


watch Mr. Crab eat his dinner. You just 
cannot help laughing at him. He sits up 
very straight and proper, as if it were a 
most important occasion. In one claw he 
holds his food, and with the other he breaks 
off little pieces to eat. If a crumb drops, he 



raises his big stalked eyes and peers down to 
see where it went. Then he carefully picks 
it up. Not having a napkin, he has to put 
his claws in his mouth when he has finished 
eating. Oh, a most tidy and particular 
gentleman is solemn Mr. Crab. 

But his food — really, one does not like 
to speak of that. It is usually some old 
dead fish, for the crabs are great beach 
cleaners. They eat all the decayed matter 




68 


THE CRAB FAMILY 


they can find. Of course that helps won¬ 
derfully to keep the beach clean and whole¬ 
some. It does not seem to hurt the crabs 
either. If there is nothing to be cleaned up, 
then Mr. Crab digs out a clam or some 
other shell person and eats him. 

Very often another crab will smell the 
dinner and come to see if he cannot get some 
of it. Then there is trouble. Up and 
down Mr. Crab shoots his eyes wildly, as a 
warning. Since they are on the ends of 
long stalks, he can draw them down into his 
head, or pop them up high and look fiercely 
around. 

If that does not scare the robber away, 
then Mr. Crab clicks and snaps his big claws 
at him. Perhaps even that threat fails. 
In that case, the dinner ends in a great 
fight, and whoever is victor eats up the rest 
of the meal and the other crab too. 

Even the baby crabs are fierce little 
fighters. They will click their tiny claws 



THE CRAB FAMILY 


69 


sharply at you, if you get them in a corner. 
Poor little fellows! They have such a hard 
time saving their precious lives. There are 
enemies in every direction. On the beach 
the sea birds are forever watching for them. 
In the water the fishes and lobsters snap 
them up. Even their own big brother crabs 
delight in a 
little crab 
dinner. 

However, 
many of the 
little fellows 
escape, be- 

cause their color protects them. In the 
seaweed live little green and brown ones. 
Over the sandy beach scamper the wee gray 
ones, like the little ghost crab that you saw. 
Tiny dark “fiddler” babies live in the 
marshes and on muddy shores. 

Just as you children outgrow your 
clothes, so the baby crabs need larger suits 







70 


THE CRAB FAMILY 


every little while. But a very hard time 
they have when they change their clothes. 
Just imagine having to climb out of one’s 
skin. That is what a baby crab has to do. 
As the little fellow grows, his skin stretches 
until it is so tight it cracks. 

Then how hard the little crab has to tug 
and pull to get out of it. When it is off at 
last, he is very tired. For a long time he 
just rests quietly under some sheltering 
rock. His new skin suit is soft and tender, 
especially his shelly jacket. But after 
awhile all is right again, and the little fellow 
comes forth. 

Again and again as he grows, a little crab 
has to struggle out of his old skin clothes. 
Even when he is quite grown up, he has to 
change them at least once a year. It is 
while he is waiting for his new shell to harden 
that he is called a soft-shelled” crab. 
People think that then he is especially good 
to eat. 


I 



THE CRAB FAMILY 


71 


A tiny crab baby is the queerest little 
fellow. He is just a wee dot of a thing. 
But he has two great round eyes, a long 
pointed nose, and a sharp spike on the back 
of his head. He does not look as if he had 
any body at all. All there is of him is a big 
round head, with a long tail on the back of 
it, and a few feathery legs. 

But those little legs can swim him around 
in the water at a great rate. After he 
changes his first baby suit, he is a very 
different looking crab baby. His eyes are 
on the ends of thick stalks, and he has true 
crab legs. Then come a few more changes, 
and he is a real grown-up crab at last. 

Now, children, you are introduced to the 
crab family. Very interesting sea people 
they are, but their manners are bad. So 
you must be sure never to let one of them 
shake hands with you, for a crab’s hand¬ 
shake is a sharp, hard pinch. 



CHAPTER V 

LOBSTER FOLK AND THEIR RELATIONS 

0 

A mong the rocks out in the deeper 

water live the lobster folk. They 

do not come up on the sand, so you 

children will not see them, except perhaps 

at your table. The little sea-folk, however, 

know them only too well. The sharp- 

pinching crabs were bad enough. But the 

great, thick, crushing claws of the lobsters 

are an hundred times worse. 

Such cannibals the lobsters are, too. 

They actually delight in catching any 

weaker lobster that they can find and eating 

him up. If he happens to be one of their 

own brothers, that does not trouble them 

at all. As for the tiny ocean folk, a lobster 

will eat every one that comes near him. 

Where do you suppose a lobster keeps his 

teethNot in his mouth. Oh, no. They 

are down in his stomach. To be sure, he 

72 


LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 73 


has only three teeth in all. But they are 
very long and stout, and chew his food well 
for him. Really, it is in his first stomach 
that he keeps his teeth. That stomach is a 
large one, which he uses for coarse food. 



About other things he is just as topsy¬ 
turvy. When he walks he stands up on his 
tiptoes. When he swims he goes back¬ 
wards. And how he can jump! It always 









74 LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 


has to be backward too, but he can go fully 
twenty feet at a time. Just think of a 
twenty-foot jump. 

It is well for him that he can spring back¬ 
ward like that; for the cod and other big 
fishes very much enjoy a lobster dinner. 
The lobsters know this. So when one sees 
a big fish starting toward him, he just gives 
one of his long backward jumps. That 
takes him out of sight of the fish, for seeing 
through water is very different from looking 
through air. The water blurs and blots out 
everything which is a little distance away, 
somewhat as a fog does on land. 

Have you ever noticed the little fans on a 
lobster’s tail.^ Well, if he could talk, a 
lobster would tell you that those little fans 
are there to save his life. It is when he 
gives them a sudden jerk, that they shoot 
his body backward away from danger. 
To the fishes he must seem like a great sea 
grasshopper. One moment he is there in 



LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 75 


front of them, and then suddenly he has 
snapped somewhere out of sight. 

Just notice the lobster’s tough shell, too. 
Do you see that it is not all in one piece, as 
is the shell of a crab? It is jointed, like 
the armor which men wore in olden times. 
It is because a lobster has such a long body 
that he must have a jointed shell. Perhaps 
he is a foot or more in length. If his shell 
were solid, he could not bend it in getting 
around the rocks. 

Just as the crabs do, a lobster snaps off a 
leg when it has been caught or hurt. Then 
a new one grows in its place. Even a new 
eye he can grow, if the old one was not too 
much injured in certain ways. When he 
changes his old shell-coat for a larger one, 
he sheds the lining of his stomach too. 
Isn’t it astonishing how all these queer 
sea-folk can break into pieces and then 
mend themselves again? 

The two short little whiplike ‘‘feelers” 



76 LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 


on the lobster’s head are his noses. They 
smell whatever food is near him. Then his 
long feelers reach all around everywhere 
until they find it. Very keen are a lobster’s 
noses, too. Quickly he smells any de¬ 
caying matter and hurries toward it. Like 
the crabs, he is one of the beach cleaners. 

The lobsters may be clever enough in 
keeping away from fishes, but they are 
stupid creatures about the fishermen’s traps. 
To catch them the fishermen make a large 
cage of slats, something like a rat-trap. In 
it they put dead fish, because lobsters think 
that dead fish are great dainties. 

As soon as they smell the fish, lobsters 
come crowding from all directions to the 
cage. Once inside of it, they cannot get 
out. Then the fishermen take up the trap, 
and the lobsters are sent to market. Much 
money the trapped lobsters bring to the 
fishermen and marketmen. That is because 
in our country lobsters are found only from 



LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 77 


Maine to North Carolina. There are so few 
for all the people who want to eat them. 

The bright red jackets of the lobsters in 
the market are very pretty. But that color 
comes only when they have been boiled. It 
is not the color they wear out in the ocean. 
At least only now and then a rather bright 
red one is found. Most of them wear dark 
green coats, with trimmings of blue and red. 
Some of the English lobsters, however, dress 
in a rich purple suit. 

The common lobsters dig deep holes in 
the sand and back into them when they 
want to sleep. But their cousins, the 
Spiny lobsters, hunt up nice cracks and holes 
already in the rocks. Very cautious they 
have to be about those holes. In any one 
of them might be lurking some terrible 
sea creature who would like a nice spiny 
lobster for dinner. 

Because of this the lobsters have to be 
very careful. They have no great crushing 



78 LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 


claws as their cousins have. Just a few 
sharp spines grow on a spiny lobster, and 
they are not much protection. The poor 
fellow knows this, and so he is very timid. 

Wherever he walks he keeps his long 
feelers, or antennae, tap-tapping all around. 
He is just like a blind man feeling his way 
with canes. Perhaps one of the antennae 
finds a hole in the rocks. Then the lobster 
is all caution. Carefully he pokes an an¬ 
tenna into the hole a little way. Then he 
pushes it in a bit farther. Finally, when he 
is quite sure that no enemy is there, he goes 
in himself. 

Sometimes his long slender antennae break, 
poking around like this everywhere. Or 
perhaps an enemy grabs one and snaps it 
off. That troubles the lobster for a little 
while. But the feeler soon grows again, 
just as does a leg if it happens to be snapped 
off. 

A gay suit the spiny lobster wears, all 



LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 79 


yellow and blue and brown. His home is 
where the ocean water is warm. Farther 
out in the mud at the bottom of the sea lives 
a relative of his. This poor creature is 
quite blind, for of course in the mud he has 
no use for eyes. But he has a queer claw, 
with rows of teeth on it. He uses it like a 
great rake, to sweep out of the mud the 
little creatures he wants to eat. 

But look, children. Here is the sun 
again. To be sure, those dark clouds over 
there mean another shower. But it won’t 
reach here just yet. We will have time to 
run down to the beach and back. 

We must take a large pail and shovel with 
us, and this scoop net. In the pail we can 
get some sea water, and a shovelful of wet 
sand. And with the net we will scoop some 
of the little sea-folk out of the water, and put 
them in the pail too. Then we can study 
them comfortably here in the house, whether 
it rains or not. 



8 o LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 


Here we are, back again with our plunder. 
Now let us see what we have in our pail. 
Here is a little fellow. Why, he is hump¬ 
back. Let us put him in a glass jar of sea 
water. Then we can watch him better. 

Isn’t he a lively little person? See him 
dart from one side to another. How he 
wishes for some sand in the jar! Then he 
would hide himself, quickly enough. Who 
do you suppose he is? He is a little shrimp, 
a relative of the lobsters. Indeed, we could 
easily believe him to be a small spiny lobster. 

The Shrimps lead a very troubled life. 
It is small wonder that this little fellow is so 
nervous. On the beach or in the rock pools 
there is plenty of sand or seaweed where he 
can hide. But even there he is scarcely 
safe; for if a crab or fish catches the least 
glimpse of him, like a fiash he is gobbled 
up. It is because of this, that he and the 
other little shrimp folk usually move about 
only at night. 



LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 8i 


Such a very small sea person our little 
shrimp is. He cannot be more than two 
inches long. Do you notice that he has 
feelers and stalked eyes and wee 
pincer feet? They tell us plainly 
Common Shrimp enough, don t they, 

that he must be 
some relative of 
the 1 o b- 

Skeleton 

his funny 

Big Claw 
Shrimp 

humped back is 
different. 

You cannot imagine what 
a clever trick some of these little 
shrimps play. They do it to hide from 
the fishes and other wicked sea-folk who eat 
every little shrimp they can find. To play 
the trick, the shrimps have to change the 






82 LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 


color of their clothes nearly every time 
they move. Like this little fellow here, 
many of them have almost no color at all. 
So while they are swimming around, they 
look like little shadows in the water. 

But it is quite different when they want 
to rest awhile on the seaweed. If it is red 
seaweed, they turn red, too. That makes 
them look just like a part of the plant. 
Then of course the fishes do not see them. 
Or perhaps only green seaweed is there. 
If that is so, then they must turn green to 
match it. Whatever they stop to rest upon 
they make themselves exactly match its 
color. 

You can easily make this little shrimp 
fellow here change his color. If you put 
some red seaweed in the jar, he will soon be 
red also. Then if you take the red away 
and put in a green piece, after awhile you 
will have a little green shrimp. Always he 
is bound to match whatever he rests upon. 



LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 83 


Many little shrimps, however, need to 
put on only sand-colored suits. That is 
because they stay most of the time close to 
the sand or in it. To find these little 
shrimp folk, just give a good shake to the 
seaweed in the rock pools or down in the 
water. Then the little fellows will dart out 
in swarms. 

Because they are so tiny, of course you 
cannot see them closely there. If you 
want to study them, you must catch them 
in a fine net and put them in a glass jar of 
sea water, just as we have to-day. Indeed, 
that is what we will need to do with all the 
very tiny sea-folk. 

On English beaches there are some 
pretty shrimps (or prawns, as some people 
call them) which always stay the same color. 
One is rose-red, and another is bright green. 
Far out on the bottom of the ocean lives a 
beautiful scarlet fellow. But loveliest of 



84 LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 


all are the gorgeous ones who live on the 
coral reefs. 

One little fellow looks as though he were 
made of green glass. His little body is 
only about two inches long, but he has one 
very big claw. You cannot imagine how 
proud he is of that great claw. It is bright 
red on top, and he is always holding it up 
to look at it. 

He can make it snap like a little pistol, 
too. If you go too near him, he will pop- 
pop at you. He is quite sure he can almost 
frighten you into fits with it. Doubtless 
the little sea-folk around him are terribly 
“scared” at the racket. 

This little firecracker shrimp lives down 
in Florida and the West Indies. The place 
he likes best for a home is in the middle of 
a live sponge. You remember that sponges 
do not smell good at all to the big fishes. 

However, if a sponge is not near, then 
some coral will do, or even a stone to hide 



LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 85 


under. There are swarms of these little 
fellows, and when they are disturbed they 
all begin cracking their little pistol claws. 
You would think the beach was covered 
with tiny torpedoes. 

Another little shrimp who lives down on 
the coral is nearly as clear as glass. But 
all across his body and antennae are bands 
of bright scarlet. He wonderfully matches 
the coral where he lives. Still another 
little fellow wears a suit of spotted blue. 
He dresses like that, because his home is on 
a lovely big blue anemone. How you chil¬ 
dren would enjoy seeing these gay little 
shrimp folk. They are like tiny living 
jewels among the corals. 

One little fellow has made himself a very 
prickly mouthful to swallow. All over his 
body he has grown long bony spines, with 
sharp saw edges. One of our own little 
shrimps is nothing but a skeleton. You 
will find him clinging to the seaweed, or to 



86 LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 


the long sea grass. Like the other shrimps 
he matches whatever he rests upon. 

There is a little ^‘feather-footed” shrimp 
here in our pail, who is going to give you a 
big surprise in a minute. We will put him 
in the glass jar, and then take him into that 
dark closet. He cannot show you his sur¬ 
prise unless it is quite dark all-around him. 

Now, isn’t he beautiful! All you can 
see of him is a streak of light, flashing here 
and there through the jar. The little fellow 
shines like that because he has lights in his 
body just as the glowworms have, and the 
fireflies. 

But let us see what else is in our pail. 
We must have dug up all sorts of little sea 
people with our spadeful of sand. Others 
were caught in our net. Surely enough, 
here are some little Amphipods and Isopods. 
Aren’t those queer names for such tiny 
folks? Not one of them is two inches long. 

We will put this little amphipod fellow 




LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 87 


in the big glass jar. Now just watch him 
swim. There he goes, upside down. He 
always swims like that. He gets along very 
well, too, lying on his back with his feet 
kicking over his head. 

However, that isn’t the only topsy-turvy 
thing he does. He always lies down to 
walk. Let us make him show us how he 
does it. We will put him on some sand 
here on the table. There! Now watch him 
go. Do you see how he pushes himself 
along with his feet.^ Can you guess why 
he does not stand up.^ It is because his 
body is too thin. He looks as if his sides 
had been squeezed close together. Really it 
is true, he is so thin he cannot stand up and 
walk. 

But he is a useful little fellow, although 
he is so queer. He spends most of his time 
eating all the decaying things he can find. 
Of course that helps to keep the beach and 
water clean. Then the fishes eat him up. 



88 LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 


People call this little red-brown fellow G. 
locusta. Perhaps he reminds them of the 
locusts in the fields, who eat up everything 
they can find. 

The beach fieas are amphipods too. But 
they do not lie down to walk. They move 
about in great jumps. You remember how 
they popped out of that bunch of wet 
seaweed on the beach when we lifted it. 
There were hundreds of them, and they 
sprang in all directions. It sounded as if 
raindrops were hitting the sand. These 
little sand hoppers swim on their sides too, 
and live in tiny burrows in the sand. 

The isopods are other flat little fellows. 
But they are flat from front to back, not 
from side to side. With our magnifying 
glass, perhaps we can find a little shining 
green or blue one on this seaweed. Or one 
who rolls himself up into a tiny ball if we 
disturb him. These are wee little fellows, 
only a quarter of an inch long. 




LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 89 


But the very brightest and shiniest of all 
the little sea people lives in deep water out 
beyond the rocks. We must surely try to 
get him in our net. Perhaps we will have 
to go out in a boat, for he does not often 



A mphipod C opepods 


come close to shore. You cannot believe, 
without seeing him, how very beautiful this 
little fellow is. He looks like a diamond 
floating in the water. From his body as he 
turns this way and that, lovely colors flash. 
Sometimes it is a gorgeous blue, and in 
another second it is a flash of green, or 
purple, or red. Sometimes he will be near 
the top of the water, and a little later we 




go LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 


will see him sparkling far down below. He 
is a little Copepod, called a Sapphirina. 

This sparkling little copepod has ever so 
many pretty cousins. They live out in the 
deep water, too. Of course there is no 
seaweed or anything for them to rest upon 
out there; and they cannot keep swimming 
all the time. So how do you suppose they 
stay afloat.^ Why, they wear little life 
preservers. These wee preservers are little 
sacks of oil in their bodies. You know that 
oil floats on the water. In this way the 
tiny fellows are kept from sinking. 

Many of the wee copepods have long 
feathery spines. These spread out through 
the water and buoy up the little fellows, just 
as our broad snowshoes keep us from sinking 
into the snow. They are gay little folks, 
these copepods. Some of them are bright 
blue and others are bright red. Some of 
them, to be sure, have no color at all except 
a little bunch of shining green or red or 



LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 


91 


blue eggs fastened tightly on to their tails. 

There are hundreds of kinds of these wee 
sea-folk. Indeed, there are so many that 
people have not given names to half of 
them. But they are all curious little things, 
and if we go out in a boat, we can catch 
quantities of them. The best time to go 
is on a warm, quiet evening. 

We must put a pail of sea water in the 
boat. Then after we drag the net through 
the waves, it must be rinsed in the pail, to 
wash the little fellows from the cloth. The 
net itself must be very fine, for some of 
these little sea creatures are scarcely the 
size of a pin’s head. 

W^hen we get them home, we must pick 
up a few of them with a medicine dropper, 
and put them in a watch crystal or a little 
saucer. Then with a good magnifying glass 
we can see what strange little beings they 
are. Some of them will have eyes which 
shine like little green lamps. Others will 




92 LOBSTER FOLK AND RELATIONS 


have lights all along their sides, like the 
lights along the sides of a big ship. 

Although they are such wee little things, 
there are countless millions of them in the 
sea. On nights when they cluster together 
in great numbers, they make the ocean look 
like fairyland. Every wave is lined with 
yellow or green fire. The track of the boat 
through the water leaves a long fiery line. 
And if you put your hand in the water, it 
will drip with sparkling green or yellow 
drops as you lift it. 

All this glowing fire is the green or yellow 
light in the bodies of these countless little 
copepods and isopods and other wee sea 
creatures. Phosphorescence is the long 
name which people give to this fairy fire. 
Sometimes the dancing waves are so bright 
with it, that you can easily see to read a 
book. Just think, children, of reading in a 
light made by these wonderful little fairy 
folk of the sea. 



CHAPTER VI 

LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


N OW, children, shall we study about 
the little shell folk this afternoon? 
Then slip into your rain wraps, 
and we will run across to the museum. 
There we shall find shells from every ocean 
beach in the world. Perhaps we could never 
go to all those far-away places ourselves 
and see the beautiful shells there. So we 
are very fortunate to have them all gathered 
here in the museum, where we can study 
them as much as we wish. 

All ready, are you? Then we will “run 
between the drops.” It is only a little way. 
Here we are. Just look! Shells every¬ 
where, a whole big room full of them. 
What a beautiful sight! Such lovely shapes 
they are. And their colors — why, every 
color of the rainbow the little shell folk have 

used in painting their pearly homes. 

0 .^ 


94 


LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


Here is a shelf full of rosy pink ones, and 
those over there are deep orange. These 
little fellows here are lemon yellow, and 
beyond them are green, and pink, and 
purple ones. Next to them are some 
chocolate-brown beauties. That whole row 
right there is snowy white. 

We do not find many such bright shells 
as these on our North Atlantic coast. It is 
where the ocean water is warm, that the 
little shell people paint their pearly houses 
in gay colors. There the bright sponges and 
corals and sea fans grow. The little shell 
folk must match them, just as the other 
sea-folk match whatever they live upon. 

Look at this Murex shell with its pink 
fronds. It is like a clump of coral with rosy 
tips. It lives among the corals of the Indian 
Ocean. You can see how hard it must be 
for the big sea creatures to distinguish it 
from the coral all around it. Here is a 
black and white “root” murex too. Its 



LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


95 


dark, prickly points look like the broken 
ends of an old seawood root. 

These sharp spines on the murex shells 
help in another way too. They keep the 



straight through other shells. Then they 
eat up the owner inside. To do this, the 
driller must first crawl up on the shell he 
has chosen to bore. Then, with the sharp 








96 


LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


file on his tongue, he makes a hole down 
through it. Of course a driller cannot 
touch a shell with sharp points on it. 
They would scratch and tear his tongue and 
his soft body. So the prickly shells are 
safe. 

But how the smooth shell folk fear these 
drillers. At any minute they may feel 
the dreadful grinding begin. Sometimes 
they try to fill up the hole while it is being 
drilled. But the hateful borer works too 
fast for that. He clings so closely to the 
shell he cannot be shaken off, either. So 
there is nothing the shell owner can do to 
save himself. At last he is bored through 
and eaten up by his cannibal neighbor. 

Crabs and big fishes are very fond of 
eating the shell folk too. The great claws 
of the crabs, and the sharp teeth and strong 
jaws of the fishes, easily crush many of the 
sea shells. But the sharp prickly ones 
they usually let alone. Just see how hard 



LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


97 


it would be for a crab to get at the soft body 
of this ‘‘Venus’ comb” murex. 

In still another way the spines on the 
shells are of good help. When big storms 
come, the waves roll the smooth shells over 
and over. Often they are thrown bang! 
against the rocks and crushed. But the 
shells which are covered with spines are not 
tossed around nearly so much. The spines 
stick into the sand and keep the shell from 
rolling. 

Some shells have only thick knobs on 
them, instead of sharp points. In a storm 
when the shells are tossed against the rocks, 
it is these knobs which are hit. Because 
they are so heavy and thick, not much harm 
comes to them. And they keep the thinner 
parts of the shell from being crushed. 

As for the smooth shells, their little 
owners usually burrow into the sand to keep 
from being tossed around. It is because 
their shells are so smooth that they can slip 



98 


LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


easily down into the sand. They could not 
do that if they were covered with spines. 

Now, children, you know why the pretty 
shell people have made their lovely homes 
all these different colors and shapes. They 
have done it to protect themselves from 
their enemies and from harm in the storms. 
It was for safety and not just for beauty 
that they built them this way. 

There is a pretty story about these 
murex shells. Should you like to hear it? 
Then you will know why they are a very 
proud family. It all happened many hun¬ 
dreds of years ago, far away on the Phoe¬ 
nician coast. Some of that country we 
now call the Holy Land. Quantities of 
murex shell folk lived there then on the 
beach. 

Each little murex person had a few drops 
of wonderful color hidden under its shell. 
People used to steal this lovely coloring 
matter from them. To do it, they had to 



LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


99 


crush the shells and their little owners, and 
then strain out the color. 

Because there was so little of the beautiful 
dye, it was very costly. Only kings, or 
most important people, could have robes 
colored with it. It was a wonderful red- 
purple shade, and so it was called ‘‘royal 
purple.” To this day histories tell of these 
beautiful murex shell folk, and their lovely 
gift to the kings of long ago. 

Now shall we look at these Thorny 
Oyster shells.^ What beautiful colors! 
This one is a lovely purple on the top and 
yellow on the bottom. Over here is a 
beauty, all rich orange. Just beyond it is 
a pretty fellow who must have run out of 
paint. See how he started to color his 
shell house a lovely salmon shade. But 
halfway across, it all thins out to white. 

Among the coral rocks these beautiful 
oysters live. Their sharp spines tell you 
how very much the driller folk like to eat 



100 


LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


them. Just see how the poor fellows have 
had to cover themselves all over with 
prickly points for protection. Some of the 
spines are so broad and long they must be 
meant to keep away the big crabs and 
fishes. 

Here is another big oyster shell on this 
shelf. Once a Pearl Oyster, with a lovely 
shell just like this one, had a wonderful 
thing happen to him. Long ago he lived 
far down in the sea on a coral island. 
Ever so many other pearl oysters lived 
there, too. 

He was very happy, this pretty oyster, 
until one day something began to trouble 
him. It was a tiny grain of sand which had 
slipped inside his shell. How it scratched 
and hurt his soft body. He just couldn’t 
bear it. So he covered it all up with some 
gummy fluid. This fluid was the same that 
he used for making his shell. Layer after 
layer he put on the wee sand grain, until it 



LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


loi 


was in the center of a smooth little ball of 
shell. Then it didn’t hurt any more. 


Not long after that, a very big something 
happened to the oyster. A black native 
man came swimming down through the 



Then up again he went, Common Oyster Shell 
to where a boat was waiting for him. 
There the shells were opened, and from one 
of them rolled a little white ball. It was 
just the size of a big bead. How the black 
man’s eyes stared. But the owner of the 
boat put the little ball away in a safe place. 
He knew it was a beautiful pearl. 

All over the world went the news of the 




102 


LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


wonderful white pearl that had been found. 
Great sums of money were offered for it. 
At last it was placed in the crown of a 
beautiful queen. Such a change for the 
little grain of sand, that had once lain far 
down on the bottom of the ocean. It was 
as if a beautiful fairy story had happened 
to it. 

Now you know how the lovely pearls are 
made by the pearl-oyster shell folk. They 
make so many that the black men are 
always swimming down to get them. Some¬ 
times a pearl will be found in some other 
shell. Perhaps it is a lovely pink one in a 
pink shell. But they are so scarce it does 
not pay to hunt for them. 

What else do you suppose happened to 
the oyster’s shell after it gave up its beauti¬ 
ful pearl? Very soon it was carried away 
to a great shop. There it was cut up into 
little strips and squares and circles. Each 
piece showed some lovely color, for the 



LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


103 


inside of the pearl-oyster shell is like a 
beautiful rainbow. 

When the pieces of shell were ready, care¬ 
ful fingers fastened them on to pretty jewel 
boxes and buckles and pins. Some of them 
fitted into lovely patterns on chairs and 
tables and desks. Then all over the world 
these articles went, for every one admires 
this beautiful “mother-of-pearl” inlay work, 
as it is called. Little children make many 
of the things, for in foreign countries all the 
family work together in the shops. 

So homely our common American oysters 
are, beside their beautiful foreign cousins. 
Our shells are gray and dingy and twisted. 
But, oh, how good to eat are the oysters 
inside of them. And what a hard time the 
oysters have had, growing big enough to be 
eaten. The other sea-folk, large and small, 
never give them any peace at all. 

Fishes and big crabs easily crush the thin 
shells of young oysters. A boring sponge 



104 


LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


makes holes all through the older shells, 
until they crumble to pieces. Driller shell 
folk bore into them, and starfishes pull open 
their shells and eat them up. Poor homely, 
helpless oysters! All this happens because 
they have not yet learned to grow prickly 
spines on their shells, s 

The clams have no spines, either. But 
most of them burrow into the sand, where 
the drillers do not easily find them. Only 
one little southern fellow has managed to 
grow two rows of sharp prickles on his shell. 
Perhaps sometime he will get it all covered 
with them. 

Just see what a big beautiful family the 
clam shell folk have. There are dozens of 
them on this shelf. Here are some cunning 
little pink ones from the West Indies. 
“Rose petals’’ they are called. They cer¬ 
tainly do look just like little pink petals 
fallen from a rose. 

Over here are little wedge-shaped fellows, 



LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


105 


all salmon and lavender and pink, from 
Florida and California. You can find hun¬ 
dreds of them on the beaches there. People 
string them to make beautiful curtains. 
One was sold for three hundred dollars. 
Lovely “sunset” shells live in the sand in 



Giant Clam Shell 


Sun Ray 


Florida. Such beauties they are, with 
rosy rays across them like the bright 
streaks of sunset colors. Oh, you will surely 
want all these pretty clam shells in your 
collection. 

But just take a peep under the shelf. 












io6 


LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


children. There is a big giant under there. 
To be sure, he is only a clam shell, but he is 
the largest shell in all the world. The clam 
folk are very proud to have him in their 
family. These giant clams live among the 
corals in the Indian Ocean. A full-grown 
one weighs six hundred pounds. The 
black natives use the big shells for baby 
cradles. 

Among the shell folk there are two styles 
of shells which they like best. One kind is 
like a snail’s shell, all in one piece. The 
murex folk prefer that shape. But the 
oysters and clams think that two shells 
which shut together like a pocketbook are 
much better. 

Here are the Mussels. They have made 
two sides to their shell houses too. Acres 
and acres of them live where the ocean 
beach is muddy, and many of them have 
little ‘‘pea crab” lodgers living with them. 
Most of the mussel shells are dark. But 



LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


107 


now and then some mussel fellow will paint 
his little house in gay stripes of yellow or 
green. Some of the mussel folk themselves 
have orange-colored bodies and red feet. 

Why, just look at this. Here are some 
round flat shells all fastened together in a 
frame. They are so thin the light shows 
through them. From over in the Philip¬ 
pines they come. The poorer people there 
and in China use them instead of glass for 
windows. Between two of these thin 
‘‘window” shells lives the little owner of 
them. He is so thin you can almost see 
through him, too. 

Now come and look at the Scallops. 
What a gay set of shell folk they are. 
Every color in the paint box they have used. 
Here are some gray, and tan, and red ones. 
There is a white one and a black one. 
These in this row are orange, and brown, 
and purple, and salmon, and yellow. On 
the ocean beaches all over the world these 



io8 


LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


showy scallop folk live. So you can find 
plenty of them for your collection. 

You must surely watch for the baby 
scallops in the rock pools, or in the shallow 
water. They are the happiest little people. 
All over the pool they go, snapping their 
shells open and shut. That is the way 
they swim. Some of them will stir up the 
water until it is all sandy, if they catch you 
watching them. They always hide like 
that when an enemy is after them. They 
have the gayest bodies, these little scallop 
folk. Some of them are scarlet, and others 
are rich orange. There is a bright fringe 
of feelers on their bodies. And their eyes — 
well, suppose you guess how many eyes a 
little scallop has. He has over eighty. 
They are just like a row of tiny jewels. 
Each one is a shining green dot, with a 
turquoise blue circle around it. Certainly 
a baby scallop is a bright little bunch of 
color. 



LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


109 

Very proud are the scallops of one branch 
of their family. St. James’ scallops they 
are called. They live on the seacoast of the 
Holy Land. Long ago, when the Christian 
armies went to free Jerusalem, they chose 
these pretty scallops for their badge. After 
that, whenever a soldier wore a scallop shell 
on his breast, people knew that he had come 
from fighting the Holy Wars. 

But look at these Valentine shells, chil¬ 
dren. They are just like little fat hearts. 
Wouldn’t this yellow one with its pink and 
purple lining make a lovely valentine.?^ So 
would this one, with its orange band on the 
edge. In the sand just under the water 
many of these pretty heart shells live. 
You can find them on almost any beach. 

Oh, here are the Angel Wings. They are 
such beautiful shells. When the two valves 
are opened out, they look like the lovely 
white angel’s wings that we see in pictures. 
That is why people call them angel-wing 



no 


LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


shells. They are very thin and brittle, and 
crack easily. 

You can’t imagine where some of these 
frail shell folk live. They live buried in 
great rocks. When they are young they 



grow larger and larger, they 


keep their shells grinding against it. That 
scrapes out enough room for them, so 
they are quite comfortable. The throat 
of an angel wing is a very long tube. When 
he is hungry, he pushes it to the outside 
of the rock. He stretches it along the 
little hole he drilled when he came in as a 
baby. Through this long tube-throat he 





LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


III 


sucks down food from the waves which 
dash against the rocks. 

Very safe he feels inside of the solid rock. 
No enemy can get in there to hurt him. Of 
course he is a prisoner for all his life, but 
that does not disturb him. He lights his 
dark house with the bright phosphorescence 
in his body. There he stays in his rocky 
castle, happy and contented his whole life 
long. 

Over here are the lazy Slipper shells. 
Boat shells they are called too, because they 
are like a 



little boat 
with a seat 
in it. All 
the other 


Slipper 


Abalone 


shells that 

we have seen to-day, except the murex, 
have been two-sided. They shut up like a 
pocketbook. But these slipper shells have 
made one broad shell do. The lazy owner 




112 


LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


inside just squats down and builds his shell 
all over himself. It looks like a flattened- 
out tent. 

Such lazy folks these slipper shells are. 
Always they make some other shell person 
or sea creature carry them. Sometimes a 
whole family of them will climb on the back 
of a horseshoe crab. If there are not seats 
enough for them all on the crab’s back, they 
sit in each other’s lap. Carefully they glue 
themselves to one another, so no one will fall 
off. You can find these lazy sea children on 
nearly all our coasts. 

There are some other one-sided shells we 
must see, too. They are the Abalones. 
Here they are, on this shelf by the window. 
Look at this beautiful one. Inside it is 
every color of the rainbow. But on the 
outside it is all dingy and rough. That is 
because it lives on the rocks, and so must 
make itself look just like them. 

Here is one with its rough top scoured off. 



LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


113 


Isn’t it almost the loveliest sea shell we have 
seen yet? Those red ones are beauties, 
too. Hundreds of these rainbow shells the 
Chinese take from the California rocks. 
They dry the abalone, as we dry fish. And 
they use the shell for beautiful mother-of- 
pearl inlay work. Through these holes in 
the shell, the abalone throws away anything 
he does not want. 

Look, children. It is getting dark, and 
they are closing the museum. We must go 
home now. But to-morrow we will come 
again, to see the rest of the shells. There 
are ever so many strange and beautiful ones 
which we have not studied yet. 



CHAPTER VII 


MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


W ELL, children, here we are in the 
museum again. All ready for a 
lesson Then we will begin with 
these Cowry shells. They are fat and round 
because the cowry himself is a plump fellow. 
He carries his one shell on his back, some¬ 
what as a snail carries its shell. Very 
different from the two-sided pocketbook 
style are these plump shells we are to study 
to-day. 

Do you see what a smooth shining shell 
the cowry has? He spends most of his time 
polishing it. He can stretch his soft body 
all over it and keep it well rubbed. Such a 
beautiful fringed body he has, all yellow and 
tan and purple and black and white! He 
hopes his enemies will mistake him for a 
clump of coral or a stinging anemone. 


MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK iig 


On coral islands the bright cowry shells 
are found. But some beautiful ones live 
on our coasts, too. This shaded brown one 
came from California. That yellow and 
white one over there, and the purple and 
brown one, too, are from Florida beaches. 
Here are some cunning little red ones down 
here. Coffee beans, people call these wee 
cowries, because they look just like ripe 
coffee beans. 

About some especially important cowry 
folks you will surely want to know. This 
bright orange cowry with a hole in it is one 
of them. It has a wonderful story. Long 
ago its home was on a coral island, among 
the yellow sea fans. Then one day it was 
picked up and carried away on a long jour¬ 
ney. After a great ceremony it was given 
to the chief of a tribe of wild men. He made 
the little hole in it and wore it for a charm. 
No one else was allowed to touch it. 

But one day a white man did a great 




ii6 MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


kindness to this wild chief. In return the 
chief gave him the precious orange cowry. 
It was the greatest treasure he had to give. 
Now, long years after, here on this museum 
shelf rests the little orange cowry charm. 
Far away is the land of the wild chief and 
the cowry’s own coral island home. 

Some pretty spotted cousins of the orange 
cowry are very scarce. But people want 
them so much they gladly pay two hundred ' 
dollars for one. The little ‘‘money” cowry 
shells are worth something too. The Af¬ 
rican black natives, who live far inland, are 
glad to get them. The most beautiful 
ivory, or anything they have, the natives 
will trade for these cowries. But it takes 
about two thousand cowries to equal one 
dollar. So you see they are not worth very 
much. 

Now do you want to meet another 
wealthy sea-shell family? Then come and 
look at the Cone shells. They are beautiful, 



MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 117 


too, and most of them live on coral shores. 
One certain kind of cone shell is very scarce. 
Only a few have ever been found. You 
would have to pay five hundred dollars to 
buy one of them. 

Some very unpleasant things we must say 
about the cones. One thing is that they are 


Tiger Coterie 



Marbled 

Cone Music Volute 


Mitre 


drillers. Worse than 
that, they can badly poison 
anyone who tries to pick them up. Poi¬ 
soning anything which comes to harm them 
is their way of protecting themselves. 

So safe are the cone folk, with their bad 
poison, that another shell fellow has learned 
to mimic them. He belongs to a wholly 



Ii8 MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


different family. But he has changed the 
shape and color of his shell until now it just 
matches a cone. Of course he really has no 
poison. But his enemies believe he has, 
for they do not see through the trick. So 
they let him alone, too, as they do the cone 
shell folk. 

They are a big beautiful family, these 
cone sea people. Just look at this white one 
with a violet tip, from the Indian Ocean. 
That black and white one over there is like 
beautiful marble. The ‘‘marbled” cone, 
people have named it. Here is a canary 
yellow one from Florida. The others are 
every shade of yellow-brown, with dots and 
patches and bands in beautiful patterns. 
These dull-colored ones from California are 
the only homely ones in the family. 

Now come and look at this “Music” shell, 
children. Do you wonder that people gave 
it that name? Just see those staff lines, 
with little dark “notes” on them, exactly 



MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 119 


like real music. This music volute lives in 
the West Indies. But he has some beautiful 
Florida cousins, and people used to pay 
two hundred dollars apiece for them. 

Do you see that this music shell is quite 
cone-shaped, too.^ Only the point is higher, 
and the lip opens out wider. You must 
learn to look carefully at the shape of shells 
as well as at their colors. Then after a 
while you will know the different shells, just 
as you know a Chinaman from a curly- 
headed Negro, or an Indian. All the little 
shell folk have their names and families and 
countries, just as real people have. 

This beautiful orange and white Mitre 
shell is still more pointed. He looks as if he 
had been rolled out while he was soft. But 
we know that shells are not made in that 
way. He lives among the yellow sponges 
and white corals. You could guess that 
was his home, couldn’t you, from his color 

All day he keeps very quiet, so as to look 



120 MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


just like the sponges and corals, which are 
not good to eat. But at night he crawls 
around, getting his food while most of his 
enemies are asleep. Some of his family 
are so afraid of being eaten up they plaster 
themselves all over with sand. Then they 
look like a part of the beach. 

This lovely Distaff spindle shell has both 
ends drawn out to long graceful points. 
The top of it has been twisted into beautiful 
spirals. It is a white shell, sometimes with 
brown trimmings. Many people think it 
has the most graceful shape of all the big 
shell family. The ‘^Lady” shell, they call 
it. Far away in the Indian Ocean this lady 
shell lives. But on our California coast are 
some chunky little cousins of hers. They 
are quite pretty, but they cannot compare 
with their beautiful cousin, the lady spindle 
shell. 

Tighter still are the spirals on this screw¬ 
shaped Worm shell. At least he begins with 



MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 121 


smooth and regular spirals. Then he acts 
as if he were tired of nice work and lets 
his shell grow coarse and irregular. How 
homely it is then, compared with the pretty 
little screw top. Some people are like that, 
too, and some children. They begin their 

Tangled Wmm Shells WOrk SO nicely, 

then tire of 
let it grow 
homely and 
wrong. 

Some of 
the worm 

Elephant's Tooth Worm Shell i n t 

shells live m 

corals and sponges. Perhaps they crawled 
into the corals for protection while they 
were quite small screw shells. Then the 
corals crowded and twisted them out of 
their own pretty spiral shape. Sometimes 
a dozen or more of these worm shells will 
twist themselves all together into a mass. 
In the shallow water on both the Atlantic 




122 MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


and Pacific coasts and the Gulf of Mexico 
these tangled worm shells live. 

No twists at all has this little Tooth shell. 
It looks just like a wee elephant’s tusk, and 
it is as white as ivory. On both our coasts 
it lives. The Indians of the West used it for 
money. The shell is open at both ends, 
you see, so it was easily strung. Certain 
lengths the strings of shells had to be, and 
the longest one was worth two hundred and 
fifty dollars of our money. 

Down in the sand the little tooth shell 
spends his life, standing on his head. He 
has no eyes, for he does not need them down 
there in the dark. But he has a foot, and 
his mouth is on the bottom of it. Wee sea- 
folk who live in the sand, he catches for his 
food. Little tentacles reach out from his 
mouth and find them for him. Plenty of 
these little tooth shells you will find washed 
up on the beach. 

All kinds of little shell folk there are. 





MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 123 


shaped like the snails. This beautiful 
purple one is called the Violet snail. Far 
out on the ocean it lives, always rocking on 
the waves. That is why it is purple-blue. 
It must match the deep-sea color. There 
are fishes who would quickly gobble it 
down, if they could see it floating there. 
The sea birds are forever watching the top 
of the water. 



too, for some 
little crea¬ 
ture they 
can eat. 


Violet Snail and Bubble Raft 


To keep 

itself afloat, this pretty violet snail has 
built a little raft of bubbles. Under the 
raft she hides her eggs and precious baby 
snails. No prying eyes would notice her 
little group of bubbles on a big ocean 
covered with foam. So there the snail 
babies stay until they can build little bubble 
rafts of their own. 






























124 MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


Sometimes a great wind blows these little 
floats in from the sea, on to the beach. 
There the poor violet snails die, for they 
cannot crawl back to the water. Their 
bodies are made only for swimming. Their 
lovely violet shells we are glad to gather up. 
It is the only chance we have, since we can¬ 
not go far out on the ocean for them. 

Such a fat little fellow is this ^‘Bleeding 
Tooth” snail over here. He is a regular 
roly-poly. Do you see his two cunning 
little teeth, with a red blotch under them? 
They look exactly as if they were bleeding. 
That is why he is called the bleeding tooth 
snail. Down in Florida on the rocks near 
low water he lives. 

Like the other southern sea-folk, the 
bleeding tooth builds a gay shell house. It 
is white, with blotches and streaks of red 
and brown and purple and black. A real 
jolly little specimen he makes. A tiny 
cousin of his lives on the Gulf of Mexico 



MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 125 


beaches. It has chosen a bright grass green 
for its wee house. 

Such a tiny thing is the cousin of the 
bleeding tooth snail. It measures scarcely 
more than a third of an inch across. But 
there are many wee children like this in the 
big sea-shell family. The little “rice” 
shells are just the size and shape of grains of 
rice. They are snowy white, too. Other 
shells are so tiny that you could not see 
them without a magnifying glass. Yet 
they all have the same beautiful curves and 
shapes that the large shells have. 

All over the rocks and seaweeds you will 
find different kinds of snail-shaped shells. 
Most of them have steep, twisted tops, like 
these on the little Dog winldes. Poor 
winkle folk! How the other shell people 
hate them. There is a good reason, too, 
for the dog winkles are ugly drillers. 
Oysters and mussels and barnacles they 
delight to suck up through the holes they 



126 MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


have bored in the shells. If you look care¬ 
fully, you can always find some of them at 
this work. 

“Pebble” shells, these winkles are often 
called. That is because they are so small 
and round that they look like little stones. 
They are just the color of the rocks. Purples 
is their true name, and a purple writing ink 
is made by squeezing the color from their 
bodies. 

Do you remember the story of the won¬ 
derful color which the murex shells gave to 
the olden kings Well, these little winkles 
are distant cousins of the murex folks, and 
in their bodies is the same beautiful color. 
If it is pressed out on a white cloth and laid 
in the sunshine, it will change through all 
the colors of the rainbow. 

From yellow to green, and blue, and 
finally to red-purple this lovely dye will 
turn. Then it must be boiled in soapy 
water. After that the sunlight will bring 



MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 127 


it to the deep crimson of royalty. Roman 
red and Tyrian purple were the names in 
those ancient days for the beautiful red- 
purple color which we call crimson. 

Somewhat like the purples are the little 
Periwinkles, who live on the same rocks. 


Bleeding Tooth Perivnnkle Carrier-of-Strangers 



them for the dog winkles. The periwinkles 
are good children. They never eat up 
their neighbors. Only the fine seaweed 
they are always chewing. They are like 
little sea cows forever grazing on seaweed 
meadows. 

Such a queer proceeding it is when a little 
periwinkle eats. Far out he stretches his 
tongue to gather in a mouthful of seaweed. 



128 MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


The strangest sort of a tongue it is, too. It 
is almost three times as long as his body. 
When he isn’t eating, he keeps it rolled up 
in his mouth, like a little watch spring. 

Then there are his teeth. You could 
never guess how many he has. He has over 
four thousand. Just think of trying to eat 
with all those teeth in your mouth. Where 
do you suppose he keeps them.^ He keeps 
them on his tongue. There are rows and 
rows of them. But he needs them all in 
chewing his big seaweed meals. 

Everywhere you will find these little 
periwinkles, — on the rocks, in the pools, 
down in the water, clinging to wharves, and 
on the seaweed. Even in the branches of 
trees which lean close to the water in some 
places, these periwinkle shell folk live. So 
high up are they that only now and then 
do they get a splashing of spray. That tells 
us an interesting story. 

It says that some day these little peri- 



MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 129 


winkles will be “land” shells. They are 
the shells which have learned to live on the 
land, far away from their once loved ocean. 
It tells us that in the beginning all shells 
lived in the ocean. How crowded the 
beaches were then! They were so crowded 
that many of the shells were pushed back 
into the mouths of the rivers which flowed 
into the ocean. 

Then gradually farther up the rivers went 
the shells, until they reached the creeks and 
ponds. But even there they had to move 
once more, for many ponds dried up in the 
hot summer. When the water was all gone, 
the little shell folk crawled into the moist 
cool woods. So that is how the rivers 
and ponds and woods have come to be the 
home of these little shell emigrants from the 
sea. 

Even across the big ocean the little shell 
people go. Free rides they steal in the 
great ships. That seems a big task for such 



130 MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


frail little folks, but they manage it. 
Sometimes they crawl up on the cargo lying 
on the wharf. Often they are on the sea 
grass used in packing the cargo. Then 
when it is carried into the ship, they go with 
it. To be sure, they have no food or water 
during the long trip, but that does not dis¬ 
turb them. 

On each little sea snail’s body is a small 
horny plate, which just fits the opening of 
the shell. When there is no food or water 
to be had, the little snail fellow closes his 
shell with the horny door. Then he goes 
to sleep until the long journey is over, and 
he feels himself brushed off into the water 
again. A little ship’s stowaway he was, 
and no one knew he was there until he 
landed. 

Often the sticky eggs of the shell folk are 
carried from place to place in the same 
manner. So in one way and another the 
little shell people manage to travel all over 



MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 131 


the world. Some of them have learned to 
live even up in the icy Arctic waters. They 
are the little Eskimos of the shell folk. 

Now, children, we must go. Our time is 
up. Quite a number of the little shell folk 
we have met, but not all of them. Indeed, 
no, for there are at least fifty thousand more. 
Would you have believed there were so 
many little shell people in the world All 
of them are different, too. Our lessons 
about the shells are finished. But you will 
always want to be learning more about 
them. Such interesting things you will 
find, as you study. 

There is the little Carrier-of-Strangers. 
People call him that because of what he 
carries around on his shell. All over it he 
fastens long screw shells. They look very 
funny there, sticking out in all directions. 
But he thinks that is much easier than 
growing so many sharp points. He has a 
cousin who glues stones to his shell. 




132 MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 

Another funny little fellow is a spiral 
shape. Longer and longer grows his shell, 
until it is very hard to carry it around. So, 
whack! he knocks it against a big rock. 
If the first bang does not break off the shell 
tip, then back he goes for a harder whack. 
When he has it cracked off to suit him, 
away he travels, all happy again. 



Paper Nautilus 


There is the Paper Nautilus, with its sad 
story. Just one minute longer we will wait, 
for you must surely hear of these beautiful 
shell people and the lovely poem about them. 

Long ago they sailed in their delicate 
snowy shells over the sunny sea. Always 




MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 133 


by their side sailed their loved companions, 
the Ammonites. In their beautiful shells 
the nautili mothers cradled their wee babies. 
Down among the lovely coral groves they 
rested, when great storms swept the ocean 
far above. So happy they were, the beau¬ 
tiful nautili and the ammonites, until one 
day the ammonites came no more. Since 
then, through all the long years, the beauti¬ 
ful nautili have sailed alone on the sunny 
sea. 


THE NAUTILUS AND THE AMMONITE 

The Nautilus and the Ammonite 
Were launched in friendly strife; 

Each sent to float, in its tiny boat 
On the wide wild sea of life. 

They sailed all day, through creek and bay. 
And traversed the ocean deep. 

And at night they sank, on a coral bank. 

In its fairy bowers to sleep. 



134 MORE LITTLE SHELL FOLK 


And hand in hand, from strand to strand. 
They sailed in mirth and glee, 

These fairy shells, with their crystal cells. 
Twin sisters of the sea. 

And they came at last, to a sea long past. 
But as they reached its shore. 

The Almighty’s breath spoke out in death. 
And the Ammonite lived no more. 

So the Nautilus now, in its shelly prow. 

As over the deep it strays. 

Still seems to seek, in bay and creek. 

Its companion of other days. 

— G. F. Richardson. 



CHAPTER VIII 

SPONGES, JELLYFISHES, AND HYDROIDS 


W HAT have you found now, chil¬ 
dren? A shell ‘‘with something 
red on it, and all full of holes?” 
Well, that something red is a little sponge. 
When he is young he spreads himself out 
flat on the shells and stones. It is then that 
he makes this bright red crust. 

But as he grows older he grows taller. 
At last he looks just like a little bush, only 
a few inches high. His color then is deep 
orange. If he would only stay that color, 
he would make a pretty specimen for your 
collection. But when he is dead and dry, 
he fades to a dusty gray. 

Another little sponge, a bright yellow one, 
made these holes. He and all his family are 
borers. They grow all over the oyster and 
scallop shells and drill them full of holes. 

Then they eat up the shells. If only they 

135 


136 SPONGES, JELLYFISHES, HYDROIDS 


would eat just old dead shells, which clutter 
up the beach. But naturally they like the 
fresh oyster shells better. However, they 
do destroy many old shells, too. 

Both of these little sponges are cousins of 
your big bath sponge. But your sponge 
came from Florida, or perhaps from the 
Mediterranean or the Red Sea. There it 
grew far down in the water, with hundreds 
of other sponges like itself. Then one day 
some men came in a boat, and they brought 
long poles with hooks on them. Down 
through the water they reached with the 
poles, and drew up the sponges. 

Then the men rowed back to the beach 
and spread the sponges in the hot sun on the 
sand. Of course the poor things could not 
live long in such heat. So after a while they 
were washed and dried and shipped away. 
That is how you came to have your nice 
bath sponge. 

But do you know that you use only the 



SPONGES, JELLYFISHES, HYDROIDS 137 


skeleton of the poor sponge? The sponge 
himself is just slippery slime. That washes 
all away in the cleaning on the beach. 
Only this skeleton of his is left, but we call 
it a sponge. The holes are his mouths. 



bringing bits of food for him to eat. 

Very easily a soft live sponge can be 
torn and broken by other sea creatures. 
So some of the sponges have grown sharp 
spikes in their bodies for protection. These 
spikes prick and tear anything which 
touches the sponge. All kinds of shapes 
the spikes have been made. Some are like 
hooks, and others are sharp-pointed stars or 














138 SPONGES, JELLYFISHES, HYDROIDS 


blades. You could feel them prick, if you 
touched the sponge. But they are too tiny 
for you to see, without a good magnifying 
glass. 

The whole skeleton of one sponge is 
formed of these glassy points. It is very 
beautiful, like a curved horn made of 
shining glass threads. While the sponge 
lives, its lovely glassy skeleton is covered 
with dingy brown flesh. So it never sees 
the beautiful shining walls of its own body. 
The Venus’ Basket, it is called, and it comes 
from the China Sea. 

Sometimes a wee creature slips through 
one of the holes into this glass sponge. 
There it lives and grows, all safely protected 
from its enemies. But never again can the 
little fellow get out, for there is a top on the 
sponge. So all his life he spends there, a 
wee prisoner in a beautiful crystal prison. 

Sponges are queer sea-folk. You can cut 
them all to pieces, and each piece will grow 



SPONGES, JELLYFISPIES, HYDROIDS 139 


into a whole new sponge. Sometimes two 
sponges will grow together into one. They 
are all sorts of shapes. Some are like beau¬ 
tiful vases, and others are like little bowls. 
Different colors they are, too. Some are 
yellow, and others are red, or purple, or 
green. Your bath sponge was shining 
black. 

Now shall we talk about that queer lump 
of jelly you found on the beachIt was a 
little Jellyfish, tossed up by the waves. He 
does not look very pretty lying there now, 
a broken and faded mass of jelly. But you 
should have seen him in the water. Then 
he was like a fairy creature, delicate and 
frail and lovely. All of his family are 
beautiful sea-folk. 

Just the shape of little umbrellas, some of 
these pretty jellyfishes are. From each one 
long streamers float out like ribbons. Clear 
as glass they are, too, with tints of pale rose 
or yellow or blue. Like little fleets of fairy 




140 SPONGES, JELLYFISHES, HYDROIDS 


boats they float along, dipping and swaying 
with the waves. Lovely enough they are 
in the sunshine, but at night they are more 
wonderful still. Then they are shining little 
globes of light, for the jellyflshes are phos¬ 
phorescent. 

If you look over the end of a wharf, or go 
out in a boat, you will see hundreds of these 
little jellyflsh folk sailing along. But be 
very careful about touching them, espe¬ 
cially the large ones. Among those long 
streamers are sharp stinging threads. They 
quickly kill any little sea creature who comes 
near, and they would hurt you badly. 
Even quite large Ashes they can paralyze. 
That is how these jellyfish get their food. 

The body of a jellyfish is made almost 
wholly of water. There is just enough 
jelly matter in it to hold it together. If 
the waves toss it up on the beach, the sun 
quickly dries it up. Yet, frail as they are, 
some jellyfishes are over six feet across, with 



SPONGES, JELLYFISHES, HYDROIDS 141 


streamers an hundred feet long. However 
these are the giants of the family. Most 
of the jellyfish folk are much smaller. 

The Portuguese man-of-war has grown a 
little sail on his body. It stands up over 



Venuj’ Basket Sponge Portuguese Man-of-War 


his back and helps him to steer. When he 
is a little fellow he can lower his sail, if the 
winds are too strong for him. After he 
































142 SPONGES, JELLYFISHES, HYDROIDS 


grows up, however, he does not need to do 
that any more. His real home is in the 
warmer ocean water. But now and then 
the big gales blow him to our coasts. 

He is a showy fellow, this man-of-war 
jellyfish. Rainbow colors come and go on 
his body, and his little sail is rose-tinted. 
His long streamers are purple-blue, and 
under them hide all sorts of little sea-folk. 
Why he does not kill them with his stinging 
threads is a mystery. He is always sting¬ 
ing other little shrimps and fishes just like 

them. They are his food. 

A little cousin of his, the Velella, has a 
flat round body and a three-cornered sail. 
But he has no long streamers to balance him. 
So, on any of our southern beaches, you will 
often find this little sailor blown ashore. 
Only a lump of bright blue jelly he will be 

then, fast drying up in the sun. 

All kinds of shapes the jellyfishes have. 
One little fellow looks just like a glass 



SPONGES, JELLYFISHES, HYDROIDS 143 


thimble. He so much prefers the cold 
Arctic for his home that he cannot be coaxed 
farther south than New England. Another 
lovely jelly creature is like a long beautiful 
ribbon, all fringed with shining glass threads. 

Sometimes this ribbon jelly will roll itself 
up from one end, and sometimes from both 
ends. Then it will unroll in long, twisted 
curls. When the sunlight shines on it 
through the water, it sparkles in flashes of 
crimson and purple and yellow like a dia¬ 
mond. Far out in the warm ocean this 
Venus’ Girdle lives. But many museums 
have one of these ribbon jellyflshes for a 
specimen, so you can see them there. 

The little clown of the family looks like a 
glass gooseberry. On one end of his body is 
his mouth, and on the other end is one little 
eye. Only two long streamers he has, like 
fringes made of glass threads. Such antics 
this little fellow goes through. Or perhaps 
they are his “setting-up” exercises. 



144 SPONGES, JELLYFISHES, HYDROIDS 


Sometimes he begins by lying on his side 
and rolling over and over like a fat little 
barrel. When that exercise is finished, up 
he gets and begins to whirl. Round and 
round he goes, just as fast as he can spin. 
Next he travels in a big circle, whirling like 
a top all the way. Then end over end he 
goes, somersaulting, far down into the water 
and up again. 

He is such a tiny little fellow, it is not easy 
to see him doing all this in the big ocean. 
But in an aquarium you can watch him 
well, and see how very earnest he is about 
his ‘"gym” work. His color is a faint pink, 
and he sparkles as if he were a little chunk 
of ice. 

So strange is the life of a baby jellyfish. 
On a warm summer night he is born, 
dropped by his beautiful mother from under 
her shining umbrella. Then away she 
floats, leaving her baby forever. Just a 
tiny speck he is, in the great ocean, but he 



SPONGES, JELLYFISHES, HYDROIDS 145 


knows how to swim. Presently he comes 
to some big rock. There he settles down 
and spreads his little tentacles to catch his 
food. 

Larger and larger he grows, this jellyfish 
baby, until finally something very queer 



Ribbon Jellyfish Gooseberry Baby Jellyfish 


happens to him. He begins to split up into 
saucer-shaped pieces. In a little while, 
one by one these saucers break off. With 
a flop they turn upside down and float 
away, each one a tiny umbrella jellyfish. 










































146 SPONGES, JELLYFISHES, HYDROIDS 


Actually that is what happens to our jelly¬ 
fish baby. He splits himself up into a 
whole flock of little umbrella jellies, just 
like his mother. 

The babies of some of the smaller jelly¬ 
fishes have even stranger things happen to 
them. The little Sarsia jellyfish baby settles 
down and grows up into a bunch of little 
stems. It looks exactly like some pretty 
moss on the rock. No one would ever guess 
that it belonged to the lovely, floating jelly¬ 
fish family. How hard it must be for the 
poor jellyfish baby to be fastened to the 
rock, when its pretty relations are swim¬ 
ming around all free and happy. 

On the ends of the stems are little ten¬ 
tacles, which gather food for this pretty 
animal-plant. So it goes on growing, until 
one day a change comes. Some little buds 
on the stems burst open, and wee jellyfishes 
slip out into the water. Just like their 
grandmother Sarsia they are, and they float 



SPONGES, JELLYFISHES, HYDROIDS 147 


away to the same free life. After a while, 
their babies will settle down too, and grow 
into little mosslike animal-plants that bud 
out jellyfish babies. 

Back and forth like this from jellyfish to 
moss-animal, then from moss-animal to 
jellyfish again, go the lives of these queer 
Hydroids. Never do the babies look like 
their mother. Each one is like its grand¬ 
mother. The children of one generation 
are lovely little swimming bells; those of the 
next are pretty mosslike prisoners on the 
rocks. 

All kinds of tiny hydroids settle them¬ 
selves on the beach. Some are on the posts 
of the wharves, and some are on rocks and 
shells. Ever so many make the seaweed 
and eelgrass hold them up. Several of them 
look like tiny seaweed plants themselves. 
People often gather one with the seaweeds 
to put into a book, and never know they 
have really pressed a little animal. 



148 SPONGES, JELLYFISHES, HYDROIDS 


On the shells of the hermit crabs grows a 
pretty pink hydroid. It is also like a soft 
moss. No one would think that it was a 
little sea animal. But it really is one, and 
it has tiny stinging threads which help to 
keep away the crab’s enemies. It makes 
the shell look old and empty, too. In 
return for all this help, the hermit crab 
shares his food with his little mossy hydroid 
friend. 

A pretty red moss-hydroid grows in the 
tide pools. You will find plenty of it there, 
looking like a piece of soft carpet on the 
stones. Sometimes a tall orange-colored 
hydroid will live in the pool. It stands up 
on a stem like a fiower, with its tentacles all 
spread out like flower petals. Its wee jelly¬ 
fish eggs could easily pass for little seeds or 
fruit. Indeed, many of the hydroids grow 
on stems and look like pretty starry flowers. 
On the California coast are some little 
hydroids which look like tiny ostrich plumes. 



SPONGES, JELLYFISHES, HYDROIDS 149 


To see how lovely all these little hydroids 
are, you must look at them through a mag¬ 
nifying glass. Very carefully take up the 
stone or shell on which they are growing 
and put it into a large glass jar of sea water. 



Then with a magnifying glass you can see 
the tiny egg-cups on the branches, out of 
which come the wee baby jellyfishes. Some 
of them are like little shining green bubbles. 

Perhaps you will have found a little 
yellow-stemmed hydroid with a scarlet head 
like a blossom. Then there are the fringe 
hydroids on the seaweeds. Their wee egg- 
cups are shaped like little urns. The baby 




150 SPONGES, JELLYFISHES, HYDROIDS 


jellies which hatch out of them never turn 
into lovely floating jellyfishes. They settle 
down and grow up into hydroids like their 
mother. But they are beautiful too, for at 
night some of them shine with phosphor¬ 
escence as if they were tiny magic ferns. 



CHAPTER IX 

SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS 


L ike gay llttle gardens full of flowers 
are some of the rock pools, and the 
pretty flowers are called sea anem¬ 
ones. They do not look much like anem¬ 
ones, however, for they have fringed heads 
like the pinks and dahlias and daisies. 
As no flowers really grow in the sea, these 
bright blossoms ” are just little sea animals. 
Their bodies are quite soft, and each on has 
a mouth on the top of his head. The 
pretty fringes are stinging tentacles. 

Always hungry are these queer sea flowers. 
So the shrimps and little fishes have to be 
very careful about going too near them. 
Like a flash the tentacles clutch any little 
creature which swims close enough. Then 
it is drawn up and pushed into the slitlike 
mouth. However much the poor captive 


152 SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS 


may struggle, it is held fast while the 
stinging threads numb and poison it. A 
most cruel way for such lovely flowerlike 
creatures to get their food. 

But a very different matter it is when 
some big sea creature comes along. In¬ 
stantly the anemone pops its head down into 
its own stomach. Then its body shrinks 
into a soft mass on the rocks. All its bright 
colors are gone, so it looks like a part of the 
rock. Do you remember that is what 
happened to the anemone in the tide pool, 
when you poked it with a stick Then it 
opened out its lovely tentacled head again, 
when it thought the danger had passed. 

Like the real flowers in our gardens, these 
sea anemones are every color of the rainbow. 
In the more shaded tide pools, and in shel¬ 
tered cracks of the rocks, you will And the 
lovely Crimson anemone. English people 
call it the Dahlia. Its head does look like a 
pretty flower. But its body is too short and 



SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS 153 


fat to be a good stem. Scarcely two inches 
high it grows, and it is always changing its 
shape. Sometimes it swells itself out as 
round as an apple. 

Just as the pinks or dahlias or chrysan¬ 
themums are not always the same color, so 


SEA ANEMONES 



Thimble Star 


these crimson anemones are not all of them 
crimson. Some are blue-green, spotted with 
bright red. Some have pink and others 
have white tentacles. But whatever color 
they are, their pretty tentacle petals are 
shaped like fat little cones. Usually the 




154 SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS 


anemone wears rows of colored warts up 
and down its body too. 

Very safe these gay anemones feel in the 
quiet rock pools. All day long they spread 
their lovely tentacles, because no big sea-folk 
can harm them there. But it is quite 
different with their poor cousins who hap¬ 
pened to settle down on the beach. They 
stick sand and broken shells all over them¬ 
selves. That makes them look like lumps 
of old refuse. Only at night dare they open, 
when no enemies are around to nibble them. 
A very serious matter it is to have great 
bites taken out of one’s body. 

On the posts of the wharves lives a beau¬ 
tiful snowy white anemone. Its head is all 
ruflSed and frilled, and its snowy tentacles 
look like white fur. Sometimes it is ten 
inches or more across, and its body is like a 
beautiful pillar. Around its neck it wears 
a collar, just the shape of a round gold ring. 
Its mouth is a slit in the top of its head. 



SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS 155 


A very happy creature is this Plumose 
anemone. Nearly all day it keeps its . 
feathery tentacles waving in the water. 
On its body is an extra set of stinging 
threads, so it is not much afraid of enemies. 

If there are no wharves on your beach, then 
look in the tide pools and on the rocks for 
this pretty anemone. You are sure to find 
its fuzzy little head blossoming away in 
some corner. 

But not always do these furry anemones 
dress in white. Some of them wear lovely 
salmon tints, and others a pale pink. 
Many of them dress only in shades of brown. 
However, as with the other little sea-folk, the 
anemones who live in the warm southern 
ocean are the most gaily garbed. They 
prefer bright scarlet, or orange, or yellow. 
But whatever color they are, you will always 
know them by their frilly heads. 

One of these furry anemones will grow 
nicely for you in a big glass of fresh sea 



156 SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS 


water. But if you put others with it, they 
are apt to eat one another up. Little 
anemone prisoners are much safer kept in 
separate cells. Some anemones have lived 
very long lives in big aquariums. One 
anemone lived for over fifty years. People 
named it ‘‘Granny,” because it was so old. 

Such queer things the anemone sea-folk do 
with their bodies. Perhaps you can watch 
them in some aquarium. Your pretty 
Plumose anemone is quite apt to glue itself 
to the glass. Then, when it wants to move 
again, it must pull itself loose. Sometimes, 
in pulling away, little pieces of its body will 
stick to the glass. In a little while each one 
of the pieces will grow itself up into a cun¬ 
ning little baby anemone. 

But that is not the way all baby anemones 
grow. Usually their pretty fiower-mother 
pushes them out of her mouth into the 
water. Sometimes she will send three 
hundred babies, all in one day, out into the 



SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS 157 


big ocean world. In an aquarium, if you 
watch very carefully, you may see these 
wee babies starting off by themselves. 

Perhaps in the aquarium you will see 
still another queer way in which baby 
anemones grow. Out of the side of its 
mother, a wee little anemone will push itself. 
Then while it is yet a baby, still clinging to 
its mother, it will sprout a wee baby of its 
own. That surely is a queer way to make 
one’s family larger. But your furry anem¬ 
one does something stranger still. It 
splits itself in two. Then the split-off part 
grows a frilly head of its own and goes off 
to find a new home. 

Other strange things the anemones can 
do, too. If one is sliced in halves across the 
middle, it will grow another head on the end 
that was cut off. Of course that gives it 
two mouths, instead of only one. A very 
happy little anemone it is then. It can eat 
ever so many more shrimps and little sea 



158 SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS 


creatures than it could before, when it had 
just one mouth. If its tentacles are nipped 
off, they will grow again, too. 

Such gorgeous cousins our little anemones 
have all over the world. There is the 
Strawberry Beadlet. It is bright red like a 
ripe strawberry, and it has little dots all 
over its body. But you would not think 
it tasted or smelled much like a strawberry, 
for the anemones have a strong sea smell. 
However, some of them are quite nice when 
they are cooked. They look like jelly and 
taste like lobster. One little fellow is very 
peppery. 

A row of bright blue knobs the Beadlet 
anemone wears around its neck. They look 
exactly like a chain of pretty sky-blue beads. 
That is why people call it the beadlet anem¬ 
one. There is a blue band on the lower 
edge of its body, which just matches its blue 
beads. So you see, there are some real 
“dressy’’ people among the anemones. 



SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS 159 


The strawberry beadlet, however, likes to 
be a little different from the rest of its 
family. So it wears pearly white beads, 
instead of blue ones. 

A funny thing sometimes happens to the 
strawberry beadlet. Right in the middle 
of her brood of red anemone babies there 
will be a little green one. So amazed she 
must be! However, there are some pretty 
green beadlet anemones among her relations. 
So perhaps she understands that her little 
green baby merely looks like that side of her 
family. The green beadlet anemones are 
just like little green thimbles, with a blue 
band around the edge. 

Down in the sand live some little Sand 
anemones. Their bodies they keep well 
hidden, and only their tentacles show. 
The little fellows on our northern beaches 
are a dirty white and not pretty at all. 
But in the south they have some beautiful 
cousins, who spread out their tentacles in a 




i6o SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS 


flat circle. They look like little colored 
stars dropped on the sand. 

Then there are cunning little Globehorn 
anemones. They are scarcely an inch high, 

with bright green 
bodies and rosy 
heads. Only the 
fairies could have 
made such 
wee elfln 
horns. 
Like little 
midgets 
they look, 
beside the 
big Trum- 
But the big horns are beau¬ 
tiful, too, all shaded golden-brown and 
lined with pale lilac. 

Little ‘‘ dead beats ” are some of the anem¬ 
ones. They spend their whole time steal¬ 
ing free rides. Instead of staying quietly 



Trumpet and 
Globehorn Anemones 


pet anemones. 


Anemone on Hermit 
Crab 








SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS i6i 


in the rock pools with the other anemones, 
they plant themselves fast on a hermit crab’s 
shell. Then wherever he goes, away they 
go with him. It is a very bumpy ride they 
have, as the hermit hurries along, hitting 
against the rocks and tipping this way and 
that. But these little rough riders are quite 
tough, with strong, leathery bodies. So 
they manage about the bumps very well. 

Not at all does the hermit crab dislike his 
little passenger. Indeed, people have seen 
him pick it up and stick it again on his shell, 
when the poor little thing had been knocked 
off. But after all, the anemone pays for his 
rides. He has over five hundred tentacles 
and quantities of stinging threads. So the 
other sea-folk keep well out of the hermit’s 
path. Besides all this, the anemone has a 
dreadful odor. The hermit does not seem 
to notice it, but it is very sickening to the 
other sea-folk. 

Close cousins of the anemones are the 



i62 sea anemones AND CORALS 


Corals. But while the bodies of the anem¬ 
ones are always soft, the corals make a 
stony skeleton for themselves. It is their 
pretty white or pink or red skeletons that 
we keep in our cabinets, or make into coral 
beads. Long before the coral reaches us, 
the little coral animal itself has died. Like 
the fishes, it cannot live outside its loved 
ocean home. 

A baby coral is a tiny soft jelly creature. 
For a little while it floats around in the 
water. But presently it settles down and 
grows little tentacles on its head. Out of 
the water it gathers bits of lime to make its 
skeleton. It is like a wee stony cup, when 
it is finished. From this little cup wave the 
coral’s pretty tentacles, and back into the 
cup they can shrink, when the fishes and 
other sea creatures come to nibble them. 

After a while this little coral pushes out a 
baby bud. Close to its mother it stays, 
and builds for itself a little stony cup just 



SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS 163 


like hers. More and more baby coral buds 
grow, all building their little cups. At last 
there are so many of them branching out 
this way and that, they look like a beautiful 
tree. Out of each little cup all over this 
coral tree wave the fringed tentacles, like 
lovely little blossoms. Some of the trees 
are all covered with beautiful pink tentacle 
blossoms, and others with yellow or purple 
or green ones. 

Little coral folks are so tender they can¬ 
not bear cold water. Because of this, nearly 
all of them live in the warm southern oceans. 
On the ocean bottom they begin to build 
their little coral-cup homes. One by one 
each wee coral creature dies, but its pretty 
skeleton still stands where it was made. 
New coral creatures build on top of it. 
Then they die, too, and leave their little 
skeletons for others to build upon. 

So up and up grows the coral, until at last 
it reaches the top of the water. It can go 




i64 sea anemones AND CORALS 


no higher, because the little coral folk can¬ 
not live out of the ocean. Now and then 
big waves break off parts of the coral and 
grind it into sand. Seeds drift on to the 
coral bank and grow into trees and plants. 
Little sea creatures come, too, and alto¬ 
gether they make a lovely coral island. 

Many kinds of corals help to build up 
these coral banks and islands. At the very 
bottom grows the pretty Star coral. Little 
walls in its skeleton are just the shape of a 
star. To make her family larger, a star- 
coral mother splits herself up. Close beside 
her stays the split-off baby, and builds its 
own little star-shaped skeleton. When it is 
large enough, it splits up, too. Each new 
coral child does the same, until at last there 
are great masses of this lovely star coral on 
the ocean floor. 

A little northern star coral you will some¬ 
times find on old shells and stones. It does 
not make great reefs, as its southern cousins 




SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS 165 


do. Usually it is only a thin crust, with 
tiny, star-shaped cups. Our shivery cold 
northern water does not make a frail little 
coral creature feel like growing very large. 

Another southern coral is the shape of a 
half ball or dome. All over it are winding 


CORALS 



ridges where each coral baby grew up beside 
its mother. People have named this the 
Brain coral, because it grows in twisted folds 
just like a person’s brain. The little brain 
coral folk themselves are bright yellow. 
For your cabinet you can get cunning spec¬ 
imens the size of your thumb. In mu¬ 
seums you will see them as wide as a door. 



i66 SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS 


Some of the coral folk build their queer 
stony homes in other curious shapes. The 
Mushroom coral looks like the pretty head 
of a mushroom, which has been nipped off 
and turned upside down. Another one is 
like a little ‘‘toadstool,” and the “lettuce” 
coral has broad flat leaves. Great fields of 
yellow coral grow up like little bushes on 
the coral reefs. Ever so many other pretty 
shapes you can get, and altogether they 
make a beautiful group for your collection. 

Over in the Indian Ocean lives the Organ- 
pipe coral. It grows in long tubes like those 
on a great organ. Lest the tubes break 
apart, the little coral folk have built tiny 
platforms to hold them together. On these 
platforms the wee coral babies bud out and 
begin to build new organ pipes. Of course 
these pipes are very small, just little copies 
of great tubes. The wee coral creatures 
themselves are bright green, and their 
lovely “organ” is rich red. 



SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS 167 


In the Mediterranean lives the Red corah 
Your pretty pink and red beads are made 



Sea 


little creatures who make it | 

have red jelly bodies and snowy white i 
tentacles. From the water they gather | 
lime and make it into tiny red prickles 
in their bodies. That helps to keep the 
fishes from nibbling them. Some of these 
red prickles press close together into a little 
rod. It is from this pretty red rod that 
your coral beads are made. 









i68 SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS 


Beautiful bright Sea Fans some of the 
little coral folk make. But these gay fans 
are not hard and stony. They can bend 
and wave in the water. Some of them are 
bright orange, and others are red or brown 
or rich purple. In life these pretty fans 
are covered with the lovely soft tentacles of 
the coral creatures. But only the lacy 
framework is left when the fans are dried. 
All over the coral reef and as far north as 
Florida these lovely sea fans grow. 

Little Sea Pens live among the corals, too. 
They look like the gay feather quill pens 
people used long ago. The point of a little 
coral pen sticks into the sand and holds it up. 
On its feather top are shining white ten¬ 
tacles. Very lovely they look against the 
red body of the pen. Some of these pretty 
pens have golden stems, and they shine in 
the dark with a lovely phosphorescent light. 

A coral reef is one of the loveliest places 
in all the world. Down through the clear 



SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS 169 


ocean water you can see the white coral 
sand and all the beautiful sea creatures who 
live there. Bright yellow brain corals and 
deep purple sea fans, pretty red sponges, 
and emerald green organ-pipe coral all grow 
together like beautiful flowers in a fleld. 

Over the coral branches gay-colored sea 
worms crawl, and bright blue brittle stars 
cling with their long waving arms. Showy 
anemones, sea urchins and crabs, little 
shrimps and shell folk, all dressed in the 
gaudiest clothes, make the reef a bright 
rainbow of color. To crown it all, like 
beautiful butterflies among lovely blossoms, 
little yellow and blue and green and red 
fishes dart here and there through this gay 
coral-reef garden. 



CHAPTER X 

SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS 


S O you are gathering sea worms to-day, 
are you, children? No? But your 
hands are full of them. There must 
be more than fifty on that seaweed you are 
carrying. To be sure, they look like cun¬ 
ning baby shells just starting to grow. But 
really they are the little homes of some wee 
sea worms. If you put them in fresh sea 
water, something interesting will happen. 
Each little worm will stick its head out of its 
doorway to see what is going on. 

Such a pretty little fellow a Spirorbis 
worm is. Just look at one through the 
magnifying glass. His head is like a tiny 
bright red feather duster. See him wave 
it around in the water to find something to 
eat. That wee horn that he carries is his 

front door. If you disturb him, back he 

170 


SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS 171 



will pop into his house again, and slam his 
little door in your face. He has learned to 
do that at the least danger. So many big 
sea-folk are just greedy to eat him up. 

But the little spirorbis is not the only 
worm you have brought. There are some 
little Serpula cousins of his, on that old 
scallop shell. 

Just put it 
in the sea 
water too. 

Now look at 
what is happening. A tiny stopper is 
pushing up out of each wee tube. There 
are the little owners themselves peeping 
out. Such pretty feathery heads, all crim¬ 
son or yellow or rose. Because the shells 
look like little coiling snakes, people have 
named them ‘‘squirming serpents.” 

You have no idea how hard a little worm 
has to work all day long. There is the little 
Potter fellow, who builds a tube to hide his 


Sj/irorbis 



172 SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS 


body. First, of course, some of his ten¬ 
tacles have to be sent out to get breakfast. 
All around through the water they wave 
until they find some wee creature to eat. 
Then they bring it in and stuff it into the 
worm’s mouth. 

After brealffast, out the tentacles must 
go again. This time it is to find bits of 
shells and other matter, to build into a tube. 
Very hard work this is. Sometimes the 
pieces are heavy, and more tentacles are 
sent to help bring them in. Then gluey 
matter must be made, with which to stick 
the pieces together. Web threads need to 
be spun for a lining. Rough places have 
to be smoothed down, and sometimes a new 
piece fitted in. Oh, there is always plenty 
to do, in a little worm’s life. 

Finally the day is over. The tired ten¬ 
tacles are drawn in, and the little potter 
goes to bed. In an aquarium you can watch 
these little worms at their work. Some of 




SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS 173 


them work only at night, when they are 
safe from their enemies. But all day long 
others build busily on their little homes, 
which are nothing but wee chimneys, after 
all. Fastened into cracks of the rocks near 
low water, or sticking up in the sand are 
these little tube houses. 

There are all sorts of interesting little 
folks among the sea worms. The Nereis do 
the queerest things. Some of them are so 
lazy they just won’t support themselves. 
In some way they have coaxed the hermit 
crabs to take care of them. Perhaps your 
sharp eyes will spy one of these little fellows 
peeping out of the hermit’s shell. 

It will be about dinner time for the hermit, 
you may be sure. Only something to eat 
ever makes the lazy little nereis come to the 
door. There he will watch until he can 
grab some crumbs of the hermit’s food. 
Then that is the last you will see of him, 
until the hermit has dinner again. 



174 SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS 


Very beautiful little folks there are in the 
nereis family. One pretty fellow has an 
orange-red body, with rainbow colors all 
over him. He is quite noted because of his 
eyes. ' He has four of them, all blue ones, 
on the top of his head. Doesn’t it seem 
funny to think of a little worm having blue 
eyes.^ You will probably find this bright 
little nereis under some overhanging rock at 
low water. 

Among the pretty nereis worm folk is a 
tiny phosphorescent fellow. He is like a 
little sheet of fire in the water. Flash, flash, 
he goes, like dazzling lightning, if an enemy 
chases him. What creature wouldn’t be 
blinded with such a light flashed into its 
eyes.^ That is what the little nereis thinks, 
as he darts away to safety. Very often, 
however, he shines with a steady light. 
That draws around him the wee sea crea¬ 
tures that he wants for his dinner. Like 
little moths they flock to his light. 



SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS 175 


Another lovely little nereis worm has a 
body like a very long canoe. On each side 
are flat little paddles, four hundred in all. 
These wee paddles are bright green, but in 
the water they shine with tints of gold and 
rose and purple and blue. The little boat 
itself is bright green and blue. Beside each 



paddle is a round dot, as if a little rower sat 
there. When this tiny canoe is at rest, the 
little paddles are all drawn up and laid in an 
even roW. 

Wonderfully graceful is this bright little 
worm, as he paddles his gay canoe through 
the water. The Paddle worm, people have 
named him. Sometimes the seaweed tangles 




176 SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS 


around his little body, and breaks him in 
two. Then he has to regrow that part of 
him, paddles and all. An empty flat shell 
this little paddle worm uses for his boat¬ 
house. Wlien he wants to rest, you are 
quite apt to And him sound asleep under 
one of these shells. 

You cannot imagine, children, how lovely 
some of the bright little sea worms are. 
Against the rocks or sand they look like little 
glistening chains of beads or jewels. Some 
of them are shining bronze and gold and 
green, like the back of a bright beetle. 
Others are like little opal chains, with soft 
pink and green and purple and blue tints 
shining out at every move the little worms 
make. 

All the bristled worms have lovely gold or 
scarlet or violet or yellow fringes. Some 
of the fringes are so long that they look like 
tiny bright feathers. Very important these 
fringes are. Some of them are the little 



SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS 177 


worms’ noses. They could not breathe if 
it were not for these feathery lungs and 
noses. Other bristles are like tiny sharp 
knives and 
spears and 
hooks. With 
these the 
worms keep 
away the 
other wicked 
sea creatures 
who want to 
them 
up. 

Under 
some stone 
in the mud 
you will find 
the funny Blood-spot worm. He looks just 
like a little drop of blood on the mud. 
Around his head is a mass of long, bright 
red tentacles, like fine hair. Just watch 








178 SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS 


this little red-headed fellow in a glass of 
sea water. All over his head his “hair” 
will bunch up into big “snarls.” Then just 
when you think he can never untangle it 
again, with a little twist every knot smoothes 
out. 

Another little red-headed worm lives in 
a sandy burrow. But when he is hungry, 
he must come up to catch food in the water. 
He has long curling tentacles up and down 
his body. If any of these tentacles are 
broken off, they wriggle around just as if 
they were little worms too. That is a 
wonderful help to the poor worm himself. 
Can you guess why? 

Well, those wriggling tentacles are really 
a smart trick that the worm plays on the 
fishes. When some hungry fish chases him, 
it is a long tentacle that is grabbed first. 
Easily the tentacle breaks off and begins 
squirming around. Of course, the fish has 
to stop and swallow it. That gives the real 



SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS 179 


worm time to get safely away. The stupid 
fish does not see through the trick at all. 
He actually thinks he swallowed the worm 
itself. Didn’t it squirm, as a little worm 
always does.^ 

Perhaps some day after a big storm, you 
will find a little Sea Mouse washed up on the 
beach. You thought we were talking about 
worms, didn’t you? Well, we are. The 
“sea mouse” is really a little worm. But 
he is so broad and plump, people call him a 
sea mouse. On his back he wears a little 
felt coat made of soft bristles. You can¬ 
not imagine how beautiful this little sea 
mouse is. He is like a tiny living rainbow 
in the water, all shining gold and bronze and 
green, and purple and red and blue. 

Just like all the other little sea-folk, the 
funny sea worms do strange things. One 
very long fellow can mend any part of his 
body which gets hurt. If his head is broken 
off, he can grow a new one easily enough. 



i8o SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS 


Or perhaps it is the hind part of him that 
gets broken. That does not disturb him, 
either, for he can grow a new tail. Even 
if he is broken into ever so many pieces, 
each piece will grow into a whole new 
worm. 

How long do you suppose this queer 
worm is.^ He is thirty feet long. Do you 
wonder that he often breaks into pieces, as 



Sea Moitse 


seaweed and stones? Always 

there are fishes to be watched out for, too. 

You know how fishes gobble up every 






SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS i8i 


worm they can find. Many times they 
must nibble bites out of such long worms 
as this one. During most of the day, 
however, he hides under shells and stones. 
But of course he must eat, and so he can¬ 
not always keep hidden away. 

Ribbon worms, some of these long fel¬ 
lows are called. They are narrow and fiat, 
and they swim with a waving motion like a 
ribbon. Among the rocks they look like 
long black strings, or seaweed stems. But 
when they are asleep under the rocks, they 
shrink up into little coils. Very often a 
whole bunch of them will be all tangled up 
together. Wicked cannibals some of them 
are, too, eating up any little brother who is 
so small he cannot help himself. 

These long worms are not pretty creatures 
at all. Most of them are black, or dull 
yellow or pink. But one little fellow is 
pretty enough to make up for all the others. 
He is bright red and about as thick as a little 




i 82 sea worms and OTHER FOLKS 


string. The Thread worm, he is called. 
You will find him, if you shovel in the sandy 
mud. He will be there, and so will all his 
little brothers and cousins and uncles and 
aunts, and everybody else in the family. 

Ever so many other pretty little worm 
folks live on the seaweed. To look at them 
well, just put some seaweed and old shells 
and refuse in a glass jar of sea water. Then 
let it stand over night. By that time the 
water will have grown heavy. That will 
bring the little worm fellows out of their 
hiding places in the shells and seaweed, to 
get a breath of fresh air. Then you can put 
them into clean jars and watch them easily. 

Just the shape of a little peanut is one 
fuimy worm. He is the color of a peanut, 
too. His tongue is ever so much longer than 
he is. He could wrap it around himself 
several times. It is most convenient having 
such a long tongue. He can stretch it out 
so very far, when he wants to find something 



SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS 183 


to eat. Then he does not need to leave his 
safe hiding place himself. 

His tongue is a very queer shape. The 
end of it is split into two long pieces. A 
forked tongue, it is called. These two 
pieces can reach out in different directions 
hunting for food. That is very nice for the 
worm, because he can get twice as much to 
eat with a split-up tongue. In big empty 
shells and in cracks, this clever worm lives. 
From these places he can easily stretch out 
his little dumb-waiter of a tongue to bring 
in his dinner. 

Baby sea worms are queer little fellows. 
Some of them look just like little tacks 
swimming around in the water. Their own 
mothers would not know them after they 
were hatched. However, their bodies grad¬ 
ually change, until finally they turn into 
regular little worms like their parents. But 
not all sea-worm babies hatch from eggs in 
the water. On the body of one worm 



i84 sea worms and OTHER FOLKS 


mother, little tentacles begin to grow. Then 
a wee baby worm is shaped. When it is 
large enough, it breaks off from its mother 
and swims away. 

On just one certain day in the year can 
some little Pacific worm eggs be set to hatch. 
Not any other day will do, but just that one. 
It is in November when the moon is in 
quarter. The parent worms, far down in 
the ocean, know exactly when the right time 
has come. It seems as if all the worms in 
that family had chosen that one certain day 
for a big picnic. 

Just before sunrise this queer picnic 
begins. Far down in the water each mother 
worm breaks off a piece of her body. It is 
the part that holds the little eggs. Straight 
up to the top of the ocean swim these little 
egg sacs. How the fishes would like to eat 
them. But they cannot do it, for the little 
egg sacs shoot up through the water much 
faster than a fish can swim. 



SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS 185 


All the father worms swim up to the ocean 
top too, along with the little eggs. But the 
poor mothers must stay at home. They 
can never come to the picnic. For an hour 
or so, early in the morning, the water is 
filled with worms and little eggs. But at 
the first peep of the sun, down go the father 
worms again. Only the wee eggs are left to 
hatch in the sunshine. In the Atlantic Ocean 
the Palolo worms have their picnic in July. 

A very wicked worm lives in the wooden 
posts of the wharves. Perhaps it really 
belongs to the shell folk, for it has a little 
shell on one end of its body. But it bores 
like a worm all through any wood it can 
find. When it is only a little baby, it starts 
a tiny hole in a post. Then, as it grows, 
farther and farther into the wood it bores in 
a twisting line. 

Of course this weakens the wood, and the 
wharf will break down if new posts are not 
put under it. People have sometimes cov- 



i86 SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS 


ered the posts with copper to keep out this 
wicked “ship worm.” Cement posts are 
often used now, for the worm cannot bore 
into them. Any lumber in the water, or 
even wooden ships are not safe from these 
little Teredo worms. Ever so many of them 
bore into the same post, but they are very 
careful not to run into one another. 

The little leeches who live in your ponds 
have a queer sea cousin. He is long and 
round like a worm, and covered with warts. 
On his tail is a big sucker. With it he can 
hang himself up, whenever he wants to 
sleep. This queer Leech is a very strong 
fellow. He can hold himself straight out in 
the water, if his sucker is fast to a rock. 
His mouth is a big sucker too. The poor 
fishes he fastens it on cannot possibly 
shake him off. 

Among the seaweeds in the tide pools, you 
will find one of the ocean’s prettiest chil¬ 
dren. He is just a common Slug, but how 



SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS 187 


beautifully he is dressed. All over him 
grow little fringes of rosy flesh, which make 
him look like seaweed. Very important is 
this seaweedlike coat of his, for it hides his 
soft body from the crabs and fishes and 



birds. If they 
suspected him 
of really being 
a big worm 
creature, he wouldn’t 

last a minute. But they think he is a part 
of the seaweed all around him. 

On all our coasts this pretty sea slug lives, 
but you will need sharp eyes to spy it. It 
is only a few inches long, and its coat always 
matches the seaweed about it. In the 
southern ocean, among the bright corals 






i88 SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS 


and sponges and anemones, live some of its 
beautiful relations. One of them dresses all 
in gold. Others are yellow and white, or 
lilac or purple or bright red. They have to 
dress in these gay colors, for it is on the 
seaweed and sponges and corals and anem¬ 
ones that they feed. 

If you can find one of these pretty slug 
folk, put him on some seaweed in a jar of 
sea water. After a while he will unfold his 
beautiful fringes. Some of the slugs shine 
with bright phosphorescence at night. Just 
a tap on the glass will set them glowing. 
Perhaps some of their little eggs will come 
in on the seaweed too. Under a strong 
magnifying glass you can see the baby slugs 
in them turning round and round. They 
are getting in a hurry to be born into the 
lovely ocean world about them. 

When a little slug is just hatched, he has 
a tiny shell with a wee door to it. That is 
so nice for the little fellow, for when he is 



SEA WORMS AND OTHER FOLKS 189 


tired he shuts up his door and goes sound 
asleep. Although he is such a mite of a 
thing, he can swim around beautifully in 
the big ocean. But as he grows larger, his 
little shell disappears. In its place bright 
fringes grow on his body. Then, almost 
before he knows it, he has turned into the 
pretty seaweedlike creature you find in the 
tide pools. 



CHAPTER XI 

CURIOUS FISHES 


O NE family of little sea-folk is very 
hard to meet. Usually they are 
"‘not at home” when you call. 
To tell the truth, when they see you coming, 
they suddenly decide to go somewhere else. 
These are the little fishes. Only in the 
rock pools are you quite sure of seeing them. 
In there they must stay until the next tide 
comes up. 

All kinds of little fishes live in the rock 
pools and close to the shore. They know 
that is a safe place for them, because the 
big fishes cannot come into such shallow 
water. They want to come, for of all the 
sea creatures they eat, they like the little 
fishes most. Their great mouths gobble 
them down at one bite. Every sort of trick 
the little fellows have to use to protect them¬ 
selves. 

190 


CURIOUS FISHES 


191 




Australian Sea Horse 


Many little fishes make their bodies look 
like the seaweed where they hide. In the 
eelgrass you will find the little Pipe fish. 
He is long and slim, and just the color of the 
grass. Much of the time he stands on his 

head, sway- 
ing with the 
waves. It 
is not easy 
to find a 
little fellow who looks so much 
Sea Horse like the grass blades all around 
him. He has a very long mouth, like a 
little tube. With it he digs around in the 
sand for wee creatures to eat. 

Down in Florida and the West Indies lives 
his cunning little cousin, the Sea Horse. He 
is only a few inches high, and his two big 
eyes are bright yellow. Straight up on his 
tail he swims, with his funny little horse’s 
head peering this way and that. When he 
wants to rest, he “hitches” himself by his 



192 


CURIOUS FISHES 


tail to some seaweed. People call him a 
sea horse, but he really is a little fish. 

Just guess who takes care of the baby 
sea horses. The little fathers do it. The 
mothers care nothing at all for their babies. 
The father sea horse has a pocket on his 
stomach, and in it his babies stay. But 
when they grow big enough to swim, the 
little father rubs his stomach hard on a rock. 
Then out pop the baby sea horses into the 
ocean. At the least danger, however, back 
they go into the pocket again. But in time 
they grow very brave and do not need their 
little father any more. 

It is hard enough to find this little sea 
horse, when he is resting quietly among the 
seaweed. But it is harder still to spy the 
Australian sea horse. He grows long ragged 
strips of fiesh on his body. These strips 
wave out around him as he swims, and make 
him look like fioating seaweed. They are 
yellow-brown just like the seaweed too. 



CURIOUS FISHES 


193 


You must keep quite still if you want to 
see the little fishes in the rock pools. If 
they think you are watching them, they will 
stay hidden under the seaweed and rock 
ledges. But if you are very quiet, they will 
forget about you and dart out after some 
little shrimp or other sea creature. They 
are only a few inches long, these little rock- 
pool fishes, but they have the queerest 
habits. 

Did you ever hear of a little fish liking to 
stay out of water? Well, the Gobies often 
do it. They use some of their little fins 
for suckers to fasten themselves to the rocks 
or seaweed. There they stay while the tide 
is out, and wait for it to come again. It 
is so much safer to hide under a great rock 
than to go out with the tide into the big 
ocean. Out there a little fish has to watch 
every minute not to be gobbled up by some¬ 
thing or other. 

That is what the little gobies think. 



194 


CURIOUS FISHES 


Most of them live in the low tide pools and 
sheltered nooks. Perhaps it is because they 
feel so safe there that they have learned to 
stay even after the tide is gone. Certain 
other little ones live on muddy beaches. 
There they scoop out hollows in the mud, 
where they can hide. On the California 
coast are some of these little “mudfish.” 
Green and yellow, and dark brown are the 
colors that most of the gobies wear. 

Such a nice safe nest a goby father makes 
for his little ones. Under some broad shell 
he digs a hollow in the sand. That is for 
his babies’ bedroom. Carefully he smooths 
and hardens its walls with mucus. Most 
particular he is, too, about the roof over this 
little room. A scallop shell makes the very 
best kind, he thinks, if he can only find one. 
WTien the tiny bedroom is quite finished, the 
little goby mother puts her precious eggs 
inside. 

That is the last the goby father ever sees 



CURIOUS FISHES 


195 


of his little wife. Off she goes, and he is 
left to take care of the tiny eggs. Faith¬ 
fully he watches over them, darting like a 
little fiend at any creature who comes near. 
Finally the wee babies are hatched, each 
one backing carefully out of its shell. Then 
away they swim, and the tired little father 
is free at last to rest. 

Other little fishes in the goby’s family 
have learned to live out of the sea. Over 
in the Indian Ocean are the little Mud- 
skippers. Most of the time they sit with 
their heads out of water. If some big fish 
starts for them, away they go by skips and 
jerks out upon the beach. They well know 
that the big fishes cannot follow them there. 
The under fins of these little Mudskippers 
are very stiff and strong. They can use 
them quite well for little feet. 

The little Blennies, too, can stay out of 
water for a long time. Some of them ac¬ 
tually like to sit in the sunshine on the rocks. 




196 


CURIOUS FISHES 


But usually these little blenny-folks wait 
in shady cracks and wet seaweed for the 
tide to come again. Perhaps you will spy 
some little fellow there, if you look care¬ 
fully. Very solemnly he will stare up at 
you, if you laugh at his big round eyes and 
chubby fat cheeks. Crimson or yellow or 
green are the suits the little blennies wear 
to match the seaweeds. 

Among the rocks and seaweed live the 
lazy Wrasse. Long hours they spend in 
just doing nothing. Some of them even lie 
flat down and go to sleep. When they are 
hungry they do not rush around after lively 
little sea creatures. That is far too much 
work. They just pick ofiP the periwinkles 
and other shells from the rocks around them. 
See what that habit has done to their 
mouths. The lips are rolled back, from so 
much pressing against the rocks, and the 
teeth have been pulled forward. 

Homely mouths the poor little wrasse 



CURIOUS FISHES 


197 


Mvdskipper 


may have, but their bodies are gorgeous. 
Some of them dress in rich green, and some 
in deep rose. Others wear orange and blue. 
There is one time when the father wrasse is 

a very busy per¬ 
son. That is when 
he is hurrying 
around, building 
a nice seaweed 
nest for his babies. 
In some sheltered 




Wrasse 


Blenny 

crack he packs the 
soft seaweed for his 
little wife to fill with eggs. Then day and 
night he watches, until his wee bright 
babies are born. 

Where some of the baby Catfishes are 
hatched, you can never guess. It is in the 
father catfish’s mouth. Of course, he can- 



















CURIOUS FISHES 



not possibly eat anything until the little 
fellows hatch out. He is willing to do that, 
however, so that his babies may be per¬ 
fectly safe. So much kinder a father he is 
than most of the fishes are. Usually they 
cast their eggs carelessly into the water and 
swim away, leaving their little babies to be 
born orphans. 

Like little cradles are the Egg Cases of 
some of the baby sharks, skates and rays. 
Very tough and leathery these little cradles 
are, so that the sharp rocks and coral will not 
hurt them. They are just the shape of wee 
pillows, with sharp points or long strings on 
the ends. The strings twine around the 
seaweed to keep the cradle from floating 
away. Tucked safely inside, the little fish 
babies rock gently with the waves. When 
they have grown quite big enough, each one 
will burst open its leathery pillow and swim 
away. 

For another reason, too, these little 



CURIOUS FISHES 


195) 


Skate’s Egg 


Shark’s Egg 


cradles have been made very tough. It is 
to keep them from being eaten up by the 
big fishes. They are greedy for every little 
fish egg they can find. Quantities of them 
are eaten. We would have scarcely any 
fishes at all, 
were it not 
for the hun¬ 
dreds and 
hundreds of 
eggs which 
are set to 
float. Nine 
million eggs 
a mother codfish sends out. Some of the 
other fishes have a great number, too. Be¬ 
cause there are so many, some are over 
looked, and the wee babies hatch out. 

Quite often you will find one of these little 
empty cradles floated up on the beach. 
By that time, the baby Ray who was in 
it will have settled down on the sand in the 



Ray’s Egg 




200 


CURIOUS FISHES 


water. All over his back are blotches 
which make him look like the beach where 
he lies. Unless you were looking very es¬ 
pecially for him, you would step on him 
before you saw him. Then the angry little 
fellow would do something very bad. He 
would snap his long tail right into your 
foot. 

How that little tail would hurt you! On 
the end is a sharp barb. That is the little 
skate’s way of protecting himself. Do you 
wonder people have named him ‘‘sting 
ray.^” Such a queer history this little 
fellow has had. Long ages ago his family 
were round fishes like the sharks. But after 
a while they gave up swimming about for 
food. Lying on the sand and eating little 
shell folk was so much easier. Gradually 
their bodies fiattened out, until now a baby 
sting ray looks like a little pancake made of 
sand. 

Some very bad cousins the sting ray has. 



CURIOUS FISHES 


201 


They have electricity in their bodies, and 
if you touch them they will give you a sharp 
shock with it. Torpedo Rays, these elec¬ 
tric fishes are called. They are round and 
flat, very much like the sting ray, and they 



lie in the sand. Just like electric batteries 
they are. Any poor sea creature who 
touches them quickly dies. That is how 
the torpedoes get their food. So afraid are 
they of any other electricity than their own, 







202 


CURIOUS FISHES 


that thunder and lightning frighten them 
badly. 

A very queer thing happens to some of the 
other little flatfishes. While they are babies, 
they look like the regular fishes. But after 
a while they tip over on one side and flatten 
out. Then the eye on the underside comes 
right up through the head, so as to be on 
top. The mouth and head have to twist 
around, too, so the poor fellow can eat. 
When all is done, it is an ugly-looking 
creature. You would never suspect it had 
once been a perfect little fish, swimming 
along straight and nice. 

Homely enough is a little Fishing-frog 
baby. But he never would have hatched 
himself if he had known how much worse 
he was to look by and by. While he is 
young his body is all covered with spines 
and streamers of flesh. They make him 
look like the seaweed where he lives. He 
can swim around just as the other fishes do. 



CURIOUS FISHES 


203 


After a while, however, a queer change 
comes over him. His mouth begins to 
grow very wide. Larger and larger it 
spreads, until it stretches his body out flat. 
At last he is practically nothing but a great 
ugly head with a tail on it. All around his 
immense mouth are fringes of flesh. A long 
spine sticks up from the top of his head, 
with a bright fleshy tassel on its end. His 
body he keeps covered with sand, while he 
waves his tassel above it. 

Curious fishes come to see what that 
bright object can be. They never suspect 
any danger. How could they, when the 
angler is so well hidden in the sand.^ Sud¬ 
denly his great mouth snaps open, and the 
poor things are swallowed at a gulp. He 
has a reason for the fringes around his 
mouth, too. To the fishes they look like 
fat worms half hidden by the sand. What 
little fish wouldn’t rush to snap up such 
nice worms.^ This time, however, their 



204 


CURIOUS FISHES 


rush ends down in a big gaping throat. 

Very far down in the deep sea it is always 
black night. Yet many fish live there, and 
among them are different anglers. Of 
course, no little fish could see an angler’s 
tassel in such darkness. So these waving 
baits are all shining bright with phosphor¬ 
escence. That brings the curious sea-folk to 
find out what that queer light means. Too 
late they understand, as the angler’s great 
mouth gulps them down. 

Wonderful creatures are the phosphor¬ 
escent deep-sea fishes. Some are like great 
boats, with lights all along their sides. 
Others have big searchlights streaming out 
from their heads. Still others are a glowing 
mass of light all over their bodies. One of 
these pretty glowing fishes lives quite near 
our shores. It is the little Moonfish. He 
is scarcely an inch thick, and only a few 
inches high. In the dark his flat, pearly 
sides glow with a soft light. 



CURIOUS FISHES 


205 


Of course the Sunfish shines in the dark 
too. How he loves a sunbath. For hours 
he will float almost on top of the water, with 


GROUP OF PHOSPHORESCENT FISH 


Moonfish 



the sunshine pouring 
down on him. When he 
is much disturbed, he 
grunts and groans and 
wheezes and sighs as if he were being 
terribly abused. But you should see his 
funny baby sunflsh. He is nothing but a 
big round head, with a little tail on the back 
of it. Under his long Roman nose is a big, 
fat double chin. 































2o6 


CURIOUS FISHES 


In the strangest place you can imagine, 
one tiny fish makes his home. It is in a big 
sea anemone. He is a showy little fellow, 
of a bright crimson color. As he swims 
around in the water near the anemone, other 
fishes come to see him. Sometimes they 
forget all about the anemone’s stinging 
tentacles, and some little fellow will brush 
against them. That is the last of that poor 
careless fish. A very good meal he makes 
for the anemone. 

Why the anemone does not eat the little 
crimson fish, too, no one knows. In and 
out among its tentacles he goes, but they 
n^ver harm him. If a big fish chases him, 
down he pops inside of the anemone. Then 
it shrinks into a mass on the rocks. When 
the danger is passed, the anemone unfolds 
again, and the little fish comes out. Another 
little fish stays in one of the sea cucumbers. 
He is the tiniest fellow, and he lives on 
scraps from the cucumber’s food. 



CURIOUS FISHES 


207 


Portuguese Man-of-War 
Fish in Tentacles 


Do you remember the little Portuguese 
man-of-war jellyfish, with its long stinging 
ribbon tentacles? Among those blue ten¬ 
tacles live some little 
blue fishes. So ex¬ 
actly do they match 
the color, they 
scarcely show there 
at all. But some¬ 
times, as they swim 
around near the 
jellyfish, other fishes 
chase them. Then 
back they rush, the 

Remora on Shark 




frightened little blue ones, into their hiding 
place. On come the other fishes, only to be 












208 


CURIOUS FISHES 


caught and numbed by those stinging ten¬ 
tacles. No one can guess why the jellyfish 
does not eat up the little blue fishes too. 

The little man-of-war blue fishes do their 
own swimming. All they need of the jelly¬ 
fish is its tentacles to protect them. But 
there are some other lazy little fishes who 
will not take the trouble to swim. They 
make the sharks and turtles give them free 
rides. Of course, the sharks and turtles do 
not want to do it. But the little Remora 
fishes have strong suckers on their heads. 
With these they stick themselves fast to the 
sharks. However hard the poor fellows 
may try, they cannot shake these little 
sucker fishes off. 

There are some other little fishes who 
have suckers, too. They cling fast to the 
rocks or seaweed for hours at a time. The 
father Lumpsucker is a fat, warty gentle¬ 
man, who dresses in the gayest clothes. 
Often he wears orange and blue and rose 



CURIOUS FISHES 


209 


and green, all at the same time. But he is 
a good father to his little ones. After they 
are hatched from their nest in the sand, they 
stick themselves fast to his broad back. 
There they ride, these lazy little lumpsucker 
babies, until they are quite grown up. 

Puffer Fish Coral Fish 


There is one funny 
little fish who does not 
ask anyone to take care 
of him. He can very 
well take care of himself. He is the little 
Puffer fish, and his body is all covered 
with spines. If a big fish chases him, he 
swells himself up into a perfectly round ball. 
AU his spines stick straight out like long. 





210 


CURIOUS FISHES 


sharp needles. On the waves he bounces 
around like a little balloon. There is no 
getting hold of him. Besides, his sharp 
spines terribly prick anything which touches 
him. 

Very funny these little bouncing burrs 
look, tipping and rolling along in the water. 
They cannot steer or balance themselves, 
any more than as though they were rubber 
balls. Neither can they sink down into the 
ocean, while they are so full of air. Only 
when the danger is passed, they let the 
water and air out of their little bodies. 
Then they look like regular fishes. Some¬ 
times the wind blows these little prickly 
ball fellows up on the beach. There they 
dry in the sun. Interesting little tenants 
for an aquarium these funny puffer fishes 
make. 

Just one more family of little fish folk we 
must meet. They are the very loveliest 
ones in all the big wide ocean. The Coral 




CURIOUS FISHES 


2II 


fishes they are named, because they live 
where the coral grows. Many of them are 
tiny little fellows, and they wear the most 
gorgeous colors. ‘^Butterflies of the Sea” 
people call them. That is what they look 
like, these brilliant little fishes, flitting in 
and out among the corals. 

Such lively fellows they are, too. Around 
the corals they dart, at the least danger. 
They well know that the big fishes cannot 
follow them there. The sharp corals grow 
so near together, they would terribly scratch 
any large creature who tried to swim be¬ 
tween them. Some of them, however, are 
lazy little fishes who lie covered in the 
sand much of the time. They think that 
is far easier than to be forever watching 
lest some big fish gobble them up. 

Although the coral fishes’ colors are so 
bright, they often help wonderfully to 
protect their little wearers. Across the 
bright orange body of some little fellow 




212 


CURIOUS FISHES 


there will be broad velvety black bands. 
The orange shades match the yellow corals 
and sea fans. But the black bands are like 
dark shadows and cracks among the corals. 
What big fish could ever spy out such a 
little mimic? However, not all of them 
trust to their colors to protect them. Usu¬ 
ally they depend upon being able to scamper 
in between the corals. 

Another trick many of them use, too. 
They can suddenly change their regular 
colors for different ones. Perhaps some 
pretty fellow will be green and red. Then a 
minute later he will change to silvery yellow. 
Or great dark bands will show on his body 
where there were no marks at all a moment 
before. All kinds of queer shapes the fishes 
have. Some look exactly like a piece of 
coral. Others have thin peaked bodies with 
tiny fins and tails. 

Oh, a strange, gay crowd are these little 
coral fishes. Orange and scarlet and green 



CURIOUS FISHES 


213 


and blue and rose are some of the colors they 
wear. The brightest humming birds, or 
gaudiest parrots, are not showier than these 
lovely ‘‘butterflies” of the coral. 

But we must leave them now. Indeed, 
we must leave all the little sea people for 
this time, for 
our visit is 
over. We ^ 
have had hap¬ 
py days study¬ 
ing their queer 
ways and 
watching 
their funny 
antics in our 
aquarium jars. Of course there are many 
others just as interesting, but we have not 
had time to study them. However, you will 
find many books which will tell you all about 
them. And who knows? — perhaps next 
vacation we can all come again, for another 
visit to these queer little people of the sea. 



Toad Fish 










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